


how to love your soulmate

by nezumiprefersdanielleovershakespeare



Category: No. 6 (Anime & Manga), No. 6 - All Media Types, No. 6 - Asano Atsuko
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-24
Updated: 2017-06-27
Packaged: 2018-11-18 15:36:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 21,935
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11293623
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nezumiprefersdanielleovershakespeare/pseuds/nezumiprefersdanielleovershakespeare
Summary: Nezushi soulmate AU where you can see every color but the color of your soulmate's eyes until the day you finally look into your soulmate's eyes.Preview:Nezumi’s soulmate worked at a bakery.He looked to be around the same age as Nezumi, had scattered locks of bright white hair, smiled happily at every customer with a seemingly unbreakable genuine disposition, and had, of course, strange red eyes.Nezumi hated him.He had not as yet spoken to the boy, and he had no intentions of doing so.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I originally wrote and posted this fic in August, 2015, and I'll be reposting it one chapter every day (even though clearly it's already completed). 
> 
> I'm reposting some of my old fics from the many accounts I previously deleted over the past few years, so if you're familiar with my fics and want to request that I repost a certain old fave, feel free to message me at my tumblr: http://coolasamackerel.tumblr.com or comment on this post: http://coolasamackerel.tumblr.com/post/160488980276/danielles-nezushifree-fics and I'll be happy to consider reposting it! For both my new readers and my old guys, hope you enjoy the fic!! :D

Looking at the fork he’d just extracted from the dishwasher, Shion thought of the game they played as children.

            His classmates would empty a box of crayons and draw perfect squares with the usual colors – brown, blue, green, and hazel (mixing the brown and green with careful crosshatches to make the fourth hue). And, perhaps only because Shion was there, though he’d never suspected such as a child, they would also draw a red box. His classmates would take turns pointing at each color and naming them.

            Some would say, _Brown, blue, green, green, red,_ and the rest of the kids would shout _Hazel!_ in excitement, as if the search of their soulmate was somehow diminished despite the number of people who roamed the earth with hazel eyes.

            Others would say, _Black, blue, green, hazel, red_ , and through the chorus of _Brown!_ the disappointment of that child’s face would be clear – brown was the most common eye color, so their search, presumably, would be much more arduous in finding their soulmate.

            Shion always thought of it as lucky, not to be able to see brown. It only meant that there were more people from which a soulmate could be found – a bigger pool, so surely with better prospects.

            He shared this opinion once, but the other children did not like it. Rare was special. Those who couldn’t see the color blue or green, who mixed those shades with other hues, those were the lucky ones. Less people to sift through before finding The One, they said.

            No one ever mislabeled the box colored red. Shion would worry, when he was young and foolish, that his eye color would be too rare – that he would never be found.

            It worried him too, that he could see every color drawn in their boxes. He thought that he didn’t understand the game, that perhaps the others only pretended they couldn’t see a color, pretended that there was no difference between blue and green, but he soon had no choice but to believe them.

            It was implausible that he was in a classroom full of liars, after all. And Shion trusted plausibility.

            It was plausible, he realized, that some people did not have soulmates. That there was not in fact an even number of people in the world, and one person might be left alone, one person with red eyes that were abnormal as it was – who wasn’t able to see red?

            And as far as Shion could tell, he could see every color. At least, this was his impression until one day long past the time of children’s games, long past the age when most knew what color eyes their soulmate would have.

            The fork Shion held glinted back at him, bright black, and this wasn’t right – forks had always been black to him, and he could not fathom how he’d never realized how _not right_ this was.

            “Shion! Hurry and empty the silverware, please, I need your help in the kitchen!”

            _Silverware._ Forks, knives, spoons – they were called such a thing for a reason, were they not?

            Shion held the fork tightly in his fist now. The metal was hot against his skin, kissed his palm with heat that was sharp from the steaming dishwasher, but Shion did not loosen his grip.

            Instead, he ran with it to the kitchen, where his mother was mixing dough, hands deep in a black bowl of batter.

            She looked up at his entrance, hair that had escaped her hair tie wisping over her eyes – normal colored eyes, brown.

            “Can you add a pinch of flour into this bowl here, hon?”

            Shion chose instead to thrust the fork into his mother’s face. “Mom, what color is this?” he demanded, fully aware that her batter needed flour, but even more aware that his soulmate was a bit more important than that day’s pastries.

            “What? Honey, are you all right?” Karan asked, straightening a bit and jerking her head just so, letting the wisp of hair drift up only to fall back down again into its previous position.

            “Mom! Is this fork black? Does it look black to you?” Shion asked, leaning closer to both his mother and the fork between them, staring at it more intently as if daring it to change color before him.

            “Of course it’s not, hon, it’s silver. The fork is silver. What’s gotten into you?”

            “It looks black to me. The same color as a Sharpie. The same color that was labeled black in the crayon box, this fork is the same,” Shion said slowly, wanting his mother to understand, needing her to say it so he wouldn’t have to, so he didn’t have to chance being wrong, so he didn’t have to voice the hopes that pressed so hotly against his palm.

            “I don’t understand. Shion, I’m not sure – Oh – _Oh_ – ” Her flour-covered palm rose from the bowl of batter and covered her mouth.

            Shion tried not to grin too wide, tried not to be too excited – he was no longer a child, after all. He was twenty-two years old, long past the age of excitement that came with realizing what color he could not see.

            “Silver?” Karan whispered, lowering her hand.

            “Do you – Do you really think – Mom, do you think it could be true?” Shion asked, palm sweaty around the fork now.

            It was plausible, he thought. Not probable – no, silver eyes definitely were not a normal trait – but by some gene mutation, some strange alteration of a chromosome here or there – yes, it was definitely plausible.

            If his red eyes were possible, after all, surely silver eyes were not much stranger.

            Karan folded her hand over Shion’s, and he felt the smooth dusty coat of flour brush his knuckles.

            “You’re so lucky,” she said, smiling, and Shion let himself grin back, let his shoulders relax and his grip finally loosen around the fork. “Silver is such a beautiful color. You’re going to love it.”

            “What else is silver, Mom?” Shion asked, the question from other childhood games.

            _What else is blue?_ the children who could not see blue would chorus, and as the other kids would point to the blue watercolors, to someone’s shirt, to someone else’s pencil case, to the sky framed by the window, there would be shouts of gleeful protest, of _No way, that’s green!_ and _You’re kidding, the sky is purple!_

            Karan’s smile softened, her hand dropping from Shion’s and resting on the rim of the bowl in front of her.

            “This bowl, Shion, this bowl is silver.”

            To Shion, it was black. It had always been black.

            But one day, it would be silver, as it was to everyone else, and Shion could not wait, could not wait to see this color his mom called beautiful, could not wait for someone to look into his eyes and see red for the first time, could not wait for his spectrum to be complete.

*

Nezumi’s soulmate worked at a bakery.

            He looked to be around the same age as Nezumi, had scattered locks of bright white hair, smiled happily at every customer with a seemingly unbreakable genuine disposition, and had, of course, strange red eyes.

            Nezumi hated him.

            He had not as yet spoken to the boy, and he had no intentions of doing so.

            “Be on time tomorrow.” The wheezy voice was accompanied by a not-quite-congenial grasp of Nezumi’s shoulder.

            He shrugged out of the gesture and didn’t bother replying to his manager. Maybe he was late to a rehearsal here and there, but he was always on time for shows, and he’d assured his manager of this at his first reprimand. The wheezy reminder was unnecessary and unappreciated, and Nezumi stepped out of the dark theater with irritation, sunlight streaking too brightly and suddenly across his face.

            He raised a hand to the sun and squinted around the small buildings that hugged each other across the street. The town was by no means prosperous, but it was a large step up from the broken cluster of shacks where Nezumi lived.

            Stepping out onto the street, Nezumi glanced over his shoulder to give the theater another look. He was already considering leaving, despite only having gotten the job two weeks before.

            There were theaters in other towns, after all, and though this was closest to his dilapidated village, Nezumi didn’t mind a commute. Walks were nice – something to do, to fill in the spaces between meals and work and sleep.

            Another pro to add to the list, and as Nezumi walked with his head ducked, he reviewed the other items of the list he’d been making since spotting his soulmate a week before.

            Pros of leaving the theater: One – Any other theater would have a longer commute, therefore longer walks, and walks were useful to fill the hours; two – He’d never have to take another step into this town where his soulmate worked and presumably lived.

            Cons of leaving the theater: One – He’d be jobless until he found another theater at which to work, which would require another round of auditions, leaving a gap of time before his next paycheck, and that was only if there was another theater hiring at all, which might not even be the case.

            There wasn’t a second con as yet, but the one con he had seemed pretty strong and persistent. Nezumi tucked his hands in his pockets, hunched his shoulders, and exhaled deeply. He knew the theater was a good gig – the manager was an ass, but that was never anything new, and he’d gotten the job with zero references, which was helpful, seeing as the last theater he’d worked at had fired him on absurd accounts of insolence. Apparently good manners were valued over talent nowadays, not that Nezumi would consider himself uncivil – reckless, maybe, for messing around with the manager’s daughter, but he had not known this was the case, and had been rather drunk anyway, not that anyone seemed to care about that.

            Getting another job so quickly was lucky, not that Nezumi believed in that shit, but he wasn’t stupid enough to think that jobs would commonly come so quickly.

            The cobblestone sidewalk pattered out into broken concrete as Nezumi continued walking. Seeing the change in stone, he felt safe enough to lift his head, and did so, peering up at the sky that was streaked with oranges and pinks, a dash of purple, and, at the very corner, a gash of red.

            It was a nice color, Nezumi conceded. He was still fascinated by it, and this bothered him somewhat. What a stupid thing to be fascinated by, and he felt foolish, but did not stop staring at the sky.

            Red was a vivid color. Something strong, something pulsing, and where the world had always seemed somewhat dull, now it was much less so, now it was far more alive.

            How irksome. Nezumi hated that his view of the world should depend on some silly bakery boy. But although this was enough to irritate Nezumi, it was by no means the reason Nezumi was so desperate to quit his job and get out of this town, get as far away from his soulmate as possible.

            Nezumi had only caught a glimpse of the boy. He’d known the color of his soulmate’s eyes since he was young. Fire, he knew, was supposed to be alive, to rage with vivid brightness, but what Nezumi had watched tear his family from him was dull and grey, broken with sparks of orange and yellow and white but mostly just colorless. He’d learned, sometime later, that the monster that had devoured his family and tore at his skin was not actually muted in color, but bright red, the same color as the scars it had bitten into his skin.

            Nezumi, of course, had never seen red, but he knew it was the color of destruction, of both life and death, a color he had never seen before, a color he dreaded seeing ever, and when he did see it in his soulmate’s eyes, he knew it immediately. The world around him suddenly shimmered and brightened like lights were being turned on in places he had not realized were dark.

            Nezumi wanted to close his eyes and pretend he hadn’t seen the red. As much as he found himself staring at the color, drawn to the richness of it, he hated that he could see it now.

            It did not remind him of fire because fire, to Nezumi, had never been red. Flame and heat and blood and death had always come in whites and greys, maybe tinges of orange here and there, but pain was mostly the absence of color.

            Nezumi did not want to get away from this kid because he was a reminder. He was not considering quitting his job and getting as far away from this town as he could because he hated the boy for making him see gashes of red in the sky.

            No, he despised the boy because a soulmate was an anchor. Nezumi had never spent his life searching for the color he’d never seen, as so many did. He had never wanted to know the true color of fire. He’d been perfectly fine with his spectrum missing a hue, with his world being slightly duller.

            A soulmate meant he was tied down. That he owed part of his soul to this boy he did not know and did not care to know. Nezumi had no desire to be a part of anyone but himself. He did not crave companionship. Other people were not meant to be permanent features in Nezumi’s life – it was a lesson he’d learned at a young age, and one he would not be quick to forget.

            Nezumi was well aware he was one of the few who thought this way. Most people who met their soulmates would hold tight and never let go, would convince themselves that life would simply be incomplete without their “other half,” and Nezumi was not about to let himself be held down. It didn’t matter how great this boy working at the bakery was – Nezumi had no other half, had no desire to be labeled someone else’s. He did not depend on anyone and did not need anyone depending on him.

            The only relief Nezumi’d had on seeing his soulmate was knowing that his soulmate hadn’t yet seen him. The boy had been looking somewhere to the side of Nezumi, and after Nezumi’s realization, he’d quickly put himself out of line of sight. If the kid saw him, that would just be another set of complications, and Nezumi didn’t feel like dealing with the broken hearts of simpering bakery boys.

            On finally arriving at his place, the walk regretfully short, Nezumi was left with nothing to do but consider the one other con he’d previously ignored – if he left the theater, if he never showed his face into that village again, then the boy at the bakery would be left waiting for his soulmate forever.

            Nezumi pushed his bangs up from his forehead and sighed. It seemed that even without him knowing, the soulmate was proving to be a nuisance already.

*

Two months after realizing his soulmate would have silver eyes, the initial excitement was finally beginning to wear off as reminders of _plausibility_ kept breaking through.

            Shion had always, after all, thought those who couldn’t see brown were lucky because of the large number of brown-eyed people – on the other hand, silver eyes were even more rare than green or blue or hazel. It almost seemed impossible that Shion would ever meet his soulmate at this rate. Just the idea that his soulmate lived in the same country – or even the same side of the world – was unlikely.

            It was beginning to worry Shion, who entertained thoughts of traveling, then quickly dismissed them as foolish. If his soulmate was truly his soulmate, as the saying went, then they would find each other.

            It would work out, he reminded himself. A soulmate was supposed to mean home, an anchor, someone to come back to and be drawn to, not someone to seek out, and so Shion stayed as he was, working in his mother’s bakery and all the while keeping an eye out for any potential signs of silver, not that he quite knew what the color looked like despite the descriptions he’d tried to pry from his weary mother.

            Twenty-three, his mother reminded him, was still very young, and often people didn’t meet their soulmates until much later, though the thought didn’t sit well with Shion. He felt energetic, recently, as if he knew something was close, _someone_ was close, and it was by no means plausible, but Shion did not care on this subject about rationality. As much as he itched to take down every statistic and create maps and graphs to plot out the exact moment he’d find his soulmate, Shion resisted, knew that love was unplottable, and it was best to simply wait, as long as that wait might be.

            Unfortunately, waiting patiently proved more difficult than Shion had anticipated, and soon Karan was kicking him out of the house, insisting that he distract himself – perhaps, she suggested, by catching the new show that just opened at the theater.

            Shion slid into the back row of seats, following his ticket number even though hardly half the seats in the theater were taken, and he doubted they were going to fill up. He didn’t mind sitting at the back. Shion had never been to a play before and wanted to absorb all of it – not just the production on stage, but the reactions from the rest of the audience as well.

            The velvet of the seat was soft, and Shion settled in, looking around the theater. The walls were higher than he’d expected, the room much larger than it looked as though the building could afford from the outside. Heavy red curtains hung across the stage. The room was warm in a thick way; Shion pushed up his sleeves, fanned himself with the program he’d been handed, and waited.

            When the curtains parted, Shion leaned forward in his seat. The actors were small on the stage before him, though he could make out some features. Their voices, however, boomed, spreading all the way to Shion in his back seat, and one in particular entranced him, an actor with a low and beautiful voice that resonated like a heartbeat and filled Shion’s ears like a pulse.

            He was not sure if the actor was male or female. The actor wore a dress and played a female part, and it was long since the time when female roles were played by male actors. Even so, Shion had never heard a woman with such a low voice. He tried to see the actor’s features, and although he could make out the porcelain white of the actor’s skin and the swallowing dark of the actor’s hair, the sharp cheekbones could have been male or female, as could the long limbs and lithe frame. The actor was distinctly graceful, but Shion was still unconvinced.

            The eyes of the actor shone from the lights bouncing off the stage, but like the other actors, no color could be distinguished from so far up.

            Shion gave up trying to decode the actor and simply let himself become absorbed into the play. The production, he decided early on, was simply amazing, and his quickly determined favorite actor took the credit for most of this. Shion could not take his eyes away, did not want the play to ever end so that he could retain this excuse to stare, wide-eyed, at the edge of his seat as the actor spoke, moved, and sang on stage.

            But the play had to end. The curtains closed heavily to the sound of clapping, and the lights in the theater rose up to the audience seats. Shion sat still for a moment, still stuck in the world of the play, then sat back and breathed out slowly. He watched the curtains as if the actors might appear from its folds, but when none did, he stood up, hand still clenched around the program he’d long since forgotten.

            Shion glanced at it, then opened it, heart thumping for reasons he could not name. He flipped the pages quickly, skimming past the black and white photographs of the cast until he landed on the mysterious actor he’d been consumed by for the entirety of the play.

            It was a man. His name was Nezumi.

            The picture featured Nezumi from his shoulders up. He stared straight into the camera lens, not smiling, no expression at all, really, just looking. It was odd to see the man so expressionless when Shion had only just witnessed how incredibly he portrayed emotion on stage.

            Unlike the other cast members, there was no description under his name, and Shion would have been fascinated by this had he not been so captivated by the photograph.

            The man was gorgeous. As much was evident on stage, but the black and white of the photograph amplified his features, drew out his cheekbones, his eyelashes, the sweep of his dark hair contrasting against his pale skin. Shion found himself tracing the photograph with his finger, his skin skimming over the glossy page until he realized what he was doing and quickly retracted his hand, face hot.

            His heart was fast in his throat, his pulse thumping in his fingertips. He felt feverish and blamed the hot theater, walked out as quickly as he could, passing deliberately by a trashcan yet unable to let go of the program book he’d curled tightly in his hand.

            Outside the theater, the air was cool, and Shion rose his face to it, breathed deeply to catch tendrils of the wind that swept across his cheeks and trap them in his lungs. He breathed out slowly, feeling foolish, but more than that worried.

            The world, as he looked around, was the same. No shift, no brightening, no transformation that everyone had heard happened when a new color was introduced. There was no reason for Shion to feel so hot. For his palms to feel so sweaty. For his grip to be so tight around the program, for his heart to pound so heavily, pulse thick in his veins so that he nearly felt his skin straining against the heat of it.

            These were the feelings, Shion knew, that one felt on seeing their soulmate, but Shion had clearly not seen his, as he became certain of on finally making his way home.

            He went straight to the kitchen, flipped on the light, opened a drawer with one hand still wrapped around the program, and held up a fork. Still black.

            Shion placed the fork carefully back into its drawer and leaned back against the sink. He lifted the program again, smoothing out the curled pages, and looked down at the photograph, listening to the quickening of his heartbeat, paying attention to the prickle of heat the spread over his arms.

            It was nothing, surely. The actor had been captivating. It was what actors were supposed to be, after all. The man was doing his job, and had done it incredibly – of course Shion should feel something, should catch some of the emotion of the play, to feel it like a brilliant sort of sickness he was only just catching but knew would soon be crippling.

            Shion had never heard of a person falling for someone who wasn’t their soulmate – it just didn’t happen, and it was definitely nothing he had to worry about. He had not _fallen_ for this actor, he was merely besotted, and Shion could almost say with certainty that any viewer of the actor felt the same way. Such beauty simply instigated such feelings.

            Shion breathed until his inhales and exhales were even, then flicked off the light in the kitchen and got ready for bed, leaving the program open on his dresser.

            He lay in bed, closed his eyes, and hoped he would dream of the beautiful actor. Dreams were harmless, after all.

*

When his manager yelled at him for being distracted, Nezumi did not even notice to retort – not that he could have much of a retort, as his manager was, for one of the first times, right.

            He couldn’t get it out of his head that his soulmate had shown up at his play, then disappeared like it was nothing.

            That was not something soulmates did. After he decided to give in to the risk of the cons and just stay at his current job – at least until he was sure he’d cemented an alternative occupation in a town far away – Nezumi had been careful to never linger in town, to walk with his head down on his way to auditions and shows and otherwise disappear from the town completely so as to limit the risk of running into his soulmate.

            He had not bothered to worry over the idea that his soulmate might show up at one of his shows, and yet this very thing had happened, and Nezumi was waiting to face the consequences.

            The consequences being, of course, the kid showing up starry eyed and possibly with a marriage proposal on the tip of his tongue, because that was just how it happened – soulmates met, married, lived happily ever after, cue the credits. Falling in love presumably occurred somewhere in that unwavering timeline, but to love was supposedly easy when it was simply a known fact that soulmates belonged with each other, completed each other.

            Nezumi winced, which was only coincidentally simultaneous to his manager hitting him on the arm with a rolled-up script book.

            “Pay attention or go home!” the man wheezed.

            Nezumi glanced at him and thought he would do well to invest in an inhaler, but said nothing and looked back down at his script.

            He’d been expecting the soulmate to show up right after the curtain close, and had avoided their meeting by escaping out the back even before changing out of his costume. Coming to rehearsal the next day had been a debate, but in the end, Nezumi gave in, resigning to the fact that he might as well get the inevitable over with.

            But the kid was not at the theater, and even two days later, Nezumi had not found himself assailed by any rose petals, love declarations, nor proposals.

            The bakery boy did not seem particularly inclined at all to meet his soulmate, and Nezumi, though he wished he could simply be grateful for such a fortunate turn of events, was not foolish enough to give in to relief just yet.

            It just didn’t make sense. Everyone was crazy about soulmates and the supposedly ensuing happily ever afters – other than Nezumi, of course, but he was the exception, and Nezumi didn’t believe in coincidence, knew there was no way that his soulmate could also be an exception.

            Rehearsal was rough and took too long, and though Nezumi wanted to go home straight after, he had a show in an hour, so he stayed inside the building and paced his dressing room.

            He hadn’t had a show since seeing the soulmate at his first. He’d been sure the boy would seek him out before his next show, but clearly, that wasn’t the case.

            Nezumi didn’t like the unpredictability of the kid. He didn’t like waiting. He didn’t like being unsure of someone’s next move or feeling out of control.

            “On in five, Eve!”

            Nezumi glanced at his door after it’d been closed again. He turned to his mirror. The make-up guy had already finished, and Nezumi looked back at his lined eyes and red lips. The reviews of his first show had called him beautiful, stunning, captivating.

            Nezumi straightened his shoulders, ignored the pinching of the clip holding his bangs up from his eyes, and left his dressing room.

            It was a relief, to slip into character and have a break from the worry of his soulmate, even when he spotted the mop of white at the top of the theater just as it had been for his first show.

*

Shion attended every single one of Nezumi’s shows. He read Nezumi’s reviews, learned Nezumi was a new actor in the theater but had previously worked somewhere else, though no information had been gained as to why Nezumi had left his previous theaters and chosen this small town to grace with his presence.

            Nezumi always declined interviews, so no new information could be gained, but Shion looked at the refusals as information in themselves.

            He was either shy or secretive. Either way, mysterious. His stage name was Eve, but since his theater manager had already leaked his real name, he was referred to as Eve and Nezumi interchangeably. To Shion, in addition to two names he seemed to have countless personas, thousands of different personalities, more roles in real life than he did in the theater, and Shion found himself falling in love with each and every one of them.

            He tried to deny it, but after two months of attending all of Nezumi’s plays, denial became hard to grasp.

            Shion always sat in the back row. Slowly, as Nezumi’s presence became known, the half-filled theater fleshed out until it was sold out every night, but Shion always bought tickets in advance, even as the prices rose. He’d never splurged on anything, always saved any penny he’d made, but he didn’t think twice on using this money for tickets.

            He told his mother it was a passion for theater he’d only just discovered, and even tried to convince himself of this.

            As Nezumi’s fame grew, Shion felt continuously better. It seemed as if the entire town was infatuated with him – not only Shion. He no longer worried about being in love with a man who wasn’t his soulmate, as apparently many people had fallen for him. It was unstoppable, and Shion no longer wanted to stop it. He craved the racing of his heart. He relished the heat over his skin.

            He ached for the moments when he would see Nezumi on stage.

            Despite Nezumi’s popularity, however, the only photograph of him remained his black and white picture in the program. Just as he declined interviews, he did not allow any pictures of him to be featured in the theater magazines Shion had begun scouring online. One magazine featured an interview with his theater manager, and Shion read it on his phone during his lunch break at the bakery, breaking off pieces a blueberry muffin and eating slowly.

            _He’s a good actor that prefers not to be in the spotlight in reality. Can’t argue with that. Or, you could, but it’s pointless to try and argue with Nezumi,_ is all the manager commented on Nezumi’s lack of interviews offered to the small theater circle.

            Shion read it three times, then added _stubborn_ to the small list of adjectives he’d inwardly collected to describe the actor. It sat quietly among _mysterious, beautiful,_ and, _captivating,_ and Shion was desperate to collect more. He wanted to know everything about this actor. More than the magazines. More than the general public. He wanted to know the things Nezumi was so reluctant to tell, and he wanted Nezumi to tell him, to want to tell him.

            It was irrational. Shion couldn’t explain it. Nezumi was hardly an infatuation anymore, but something else to Shion altogether, something he didn’t have a word for, didn’t care to label because a label wouldn’t stop it.

            The only thing that could help was as much exposure to Nezumi as possible. Shion continued to attend Nezumi’s plays. He collected a program at every one he attended, though Nezumi’s picture was the same in each, and his description remained blank.

            The weather was getting cold enough that Shion wrapped himself in a sweater, jacket, and scarf before exiting the theater after one of Nezumi’s shows. He tucked his new program in the pocket of his jacket and cupped his hands to blow on them as the wind collected his hair and swirled it up so that his ears were exposed to the chill.

            It was raining hard, and Shion regretting not bringing an umbrella, cowering under the awning of the theater and watching as the other theater-goers streamed out, huddling under their own umbrellas.

            Shion huddled against the theater building and contemplated making his way back home through what was quickly becoming a raging storm or waiting it out inside the theater. The rain slanted away from him, allowing him to at least stay dry as he made his decision. He peered up at the sky, thick with grey clouds that glowed as a strike of bright white lightning lit them like a burst of flame.

            Thunder rumbled as though it was contained under Shion’s feet rather than in the sky. Shion decided he’d wait the storm out, and turned around to slip back into the theater. He reached out and pulled on the handle – the door did not budge. He pulled again, harder this time, then another time with his other hand on the handle of the neighboring door as well. He pushed, pulled once more, then pushed hard a last time before resigning to the fact that they’d already locked the doors.

            Shion turned back around and watched the rain plummet against the streets. It had begun to fall hard and fast, and the wind had started to shift, was blowing the drops towards the building so that they caught Shion even as he cowered under the awning.

            He winced at the cold of the water, wiped drops off his face that were quickly replaced.

            “Shit,” Shion cursed, under his breath, then realized there was surely a back entrance to the theater. He walked around it, keeping under the awning, wincing at the rain and wishing his jacket had a hood. He stuffed his fingers into his pockets, but they were already wet, and even his skin under his clothing felt wet. He trembled, felt as though his bones were clacking against each other.

            The back door, when Shion came upon it, was closed, and Shion reached out without much hope, thinking it was surely locked as well. Even so, he placed his hand against the handle, and to his surprise, it lowered under his grip. As Shion pulled, it swung open, more quickly than he’d expected so that he was forced to step back out from under the awning and into the rain, losing his balance with his quick steps and falling back.

            He felt a tug on the front of his jacket, and suddenly was no longer falling, was standing upright again, the grip on his jacket having moved from its front to a solid pressure on his arm.

            “Easy. Steady yourself.”

            Shion blinked up at the man who’d caught him, but he didn’t need to. He knew this voice. Had come to this theater just to hear this voice for two months, and even though for the first time it wasn’t amplified across a stage and rows of chairs, Shion recognized it immediately, the low calm of it, the gentle wash of it, warm over his cool skin.

            The rain was caught in Shion’s eyelashes, but it hardly mattered. Nezumi was hooded to shield his own eyes from the rain, and the black fabric was pulled so far over his face that Shion would make out nothing but lips, which curled into more soft syllables as he watched.

            “Can you read?” the lips asked, and Shion gasped, realized he hadn’t been breathing, wondered if his lack of breath was affecting his hearing, or maybe it was just another crash of thunder, loud enough to jostle the actor’s syllables into a strange question that seemed quite incredibly out of place.

            “What?” Shion asked. He was breathless, hoped the rain was not louder than his tentative voice.

            “Can you read?” Nezumi repeated.

            His hand had not moved from Shion’s arm as if he still worried Shion would fall. He had every right to worry. Shion could not feel his legs, strongly suspected this was not an effect of the cold, which he no longer felt anyway.

            “Read? Yes, I can read,” Shion confirmed, glad the question was easy even though it seemed strange. He didn’t have to think too much to answer it, which was a good thing, at that moment.

            “Hm. So then you’re just discourteous.”

            This required thought, but it did not matter to Shion’s brain, which was occupied rather relentlessly with other functions – breathing, for instance, although that had never required such intense concentration before.

            “What?” he asked. He thought he might have already asked this, but wasn’t sure.

            “Discourteous. Impolite. Ill-mannered.” The lips had turned up just slightly by this point, but Shion might have been seeing things – the rain blurred his vision, sticking to his eyelashes, dripping with every blink.

            “I don’t – ” _understand_ – Shion figured a three-syllable word might be too much of a challenge at the moment, so he cut himself off before he could tangle himself up in the word.

            The lips lifted further, just the corner of them. Half a smile, Shion thought, and he would have done anything for a full one.

            “The sign on the door says, _This entrance for cast and crew only_ , but you would know that, of course, since you can read. It’s rather discourteous to ignore a sign.”

            The words fell on Shion slower and lighter than the rain, so Shion could not imagine why the warmth of Nezumi’s voice permeated his skin so much more effectively, warmed him despite the fact that, at this point, he was thoroughly drenched.

            “I’m sorry. I was just trying to get out of the rain.”

            “You weren’t quite successful,” Nezumi noted. The rain pummeled his hood as if the sky too wanted the actor to reveal himself fully.

            “I’m Shion,” Shion whispered, and the lips twitched.

            “I don’t remember asking for your name.”

            “Well, I know yours, it only seemed fair that you know mine,” Shion replied, tossing words in between the streaks of rain that fell in a shining curtain between them. He wanted the storm to go on forever. He felt as though he was burning from the inside out, and the cool of the swirling wind was a welcome relief, the chill of the falling rain kept his skin from lighting in flame.

            Nezumi was taller than him. Although the fabric of his hood covered his eyes, Shion knew Nezumi could probably still see Shion clearly, peering down at him. The thought thrilled him and terrified him. He knew his hair would be plastered to his face with rain. He knew his captivation must be apparent.

            He would be just another fan to Nezumi, and the thought struck Shion sharper than lightening, a jolt in his chest that spread down to his fingertips.

            He wanted to be more. He wanted to be everything.

            How dangerous. Shion didn’t even know the man.

            “Aren’t you cold?” Nezumi asked.

            “Not at all. The storm feels good, actually. Refreshing,” Shion rambled, not thinking, and by the time he actually realized what he was saying, it was too late.

            Another strike of warmth at Nezumi’s quick grin, the breath of air from his lips like the smallest laughter.

            “You are very unexpected,” the actor said, after a long moment of nothing but rain and thunder.

            Shion didn’t know what to say to this. He was glad he didn’t have to say anything, that he could count on the storm to fill the silence between them, fill it so that it was nearly bursting, there was hardly room for any more words anyway.

            “Shion,” Nezumi said, after what might have been minutes, hours, days – could a storm last so long?

            Shion loved the way his name looked on the actor’s lips. He wanted to watch them curl around his syllables again and again. He wanted to reach out and touch the lips, to feel his name, the gentle warmth of it in the way Nezumi spoke it.

            “Yes?”

            “Aren’t you going home?”

            “I’m waiting out the rain,” Shion said, blinking more rain from his eyelashes, feeling them tremble on his cheeks before dripping down.

            “You’re standing in the rain.”

            “So are you,” Shion replied.

            “Because you’re in my way,” Nezumi noted, and this was a blatant lie. The man could have easily stepped around Shion. There was so much room on the street, too much room, Shion wished the world were a bit smaller, maybe then so would the space be between him and Nezumi.

            The actor was no longer holding on to Shion’s arm, he noticed. He didn’t know when Nezumi removed his hand, but now that he noticed, he was worried. He was sure he would fall, be blown away by this crazy storm, this lovely storm.

            “This storm is kind of crazy,” Shion pointed out.

            “You’re kind of crazy,” Nezumi replied, but Shion wasn’t entirely sure that was what the actor said, as his words were muttered almost under his breath, and though Shion tried to read his lips, he wasn’t very good at it.

            He doubted he’d heard correctly.

            “Are you going to walk home through this?” Shion asked.

            “I’m already drenched.”

            “Is your place far? Mine’s around the corner.” Another lie, but Nezumi had been the one to lie first, so Shion didn’t mind that much.

            “A bit far,” Nezumi said slowly, lips moving carefully like he was unsure of the words as he spoke them, scared to let them travel too far.

            “You’ll get sick if you stand out here much longer. We both will. Come home with me and get dried off, wait for the storm to pass,” Shion said, voice shaken by the wind.

            The thought that this actor would agree to come home with him was highly implausible. Shion was a complete stranger. Nezumi would say no, had to say no, to shake his head and laugh with his lips slipping into a small smile, slipping out an exhale of amusement that Shion would even propose such an implausible thing.

            It was almost as crazy as the storm, Shion thought, and he thought this over and over so that he wouldn’t get his hopes up, over and over so that maybe he could drown out the sound of Nezumi’s refusal.

            “Okay,” Nezumi said, and Shion’s thoughts froze, jarred to a stop.

            He had to lean forward the smallest bit. Lift his chin the tiniest bit – not enough so that he could see beneath the man’s hood – maybe the tip of a nose, but nothing more.

            Maybe of glint of shining eyes, but they seemed as far away as they did when Shion watched Nezumi from the top of the theater.

            “What?” he asked softly. Maybe the third time he asked it, but who was keeping track anyway?

            “Okay,” Nezumi said again, not smiling at all now, lips even turning down the slightest bit as if he was doubtful of his decision, but Shion grinned wide enough to make up for it, was relieved enough by Nezumi’s decision for the both of them.

            “Okay,” he confirmed, and he turned away from the actor to look up at the crazy storm that continued in torrents, unrelenting and wonderful.

*

Outside the door of the bakery, Nezumi realized his soulmate must have lived on the floor above the shop.

            He wanted to turn around. He’d wanted to turn around since he started following the boy, who glanced back behind his shoulder every few minutes, always seeming delightfully surprised to see Nezumi still behind him.

            The kid had lied. His house was more than a block away. Closer than Nezumi’s, but that hardly mattered.

            Nezumi didn’t care if he got sick. He probably already was, doing something so stupid as going to his soulmate’s house. It was weird enough that the kid hadn’t said anything about them being soulmates. Nezumi had no idea what to expect from him, and this was even worse – Nezumi didn’t like that the kid managed to surprise him with everything he said, everything he did.

            People were supposed to be easy to read.  That such a genuine person who wore his emotions on his sleeve could be so confusing was only more aggravating.

            “Come on,” Shion beckoned, opening the door for Nezumi, and even though Nezumi needed to turn around, he didn’t.

            He walked through the doorway, and the warmth of the bakery was overwhelming – though it was closed by now, as it must have been nearing eleven at night.

            “My mom’s asleep, so we’ll have to be quiet. She goes to bed early so she can wake up to make fresh pastries every day,” Shion supplied over his shoulder as he climbed the stairs by the side of the bakery.

            Nezumi followed him silently. The kid lived with his mother.

            Nezumi wanted to feel disdain for him, but didn’t. He didn’t know what he felt for this boy leading him up to his room where Nezumi stood in the doorway, unsure, uncomfortable.

            “Here’s a change of clothes. I’ll just grab some towels for you, then you can change in here unless you want to shower. Do you want to shower?”

            “I’m fine,” Nezumi murmured.

            Shion laid clothes on the bed, then slipped out the doorway past Nezumi, smiling at him briefly as he went.

            Nezumi stared back.

            At Shion’s absence, Nezumi took a few more steps into the room. It was neat, almost abnormally so. There was a bed, a desk, and a dresser, above which was a mirror, and Nezumi glanced at it.

            He could hardly see because of his hood, and as he was reaching up to pull it off, he froze.

            He stared into the mirror, taking another step closer. The only way he could see himself was by tilting his chin up, and even then, he could barely see his eyes, just glimpses of them. Doubtful bakery boy had had this view of him – the kid would only have seen the bottom half of his face – lips, chin.

            He would not have seen Nezumi’s eyes, and Nezumi realized that even in the theater, the kid was always in the top row, much too far up from the stage to make out anyone’s eye color.

            He still didn’t know Nezumi was his soulmate. Of course he didn’t.  And it wasn’t too late to disappear without the kid ever being the wiser.

            “Here’s your towel. Do you mind if I take a quick shower? I’ll just be in the bathroom across the hall. And you can hang your wet clothes on the hangers in the closet.”

            Nezumi turned at Shion’s reentry, but only slightly. He still had his hood on, but now he was aware that he had to be extra cautious. “Thanks,” he murmured, and he listened to the door click closed.     

            Nezumi shed his hood. He looked again at the mirror, at the silver eyes staring back. He thought his skin looked pasty, paler than usual – probably from the cold. He definitely would be getting sick.

            He turned from the mirror, hearing the shower spray from the bathroom across the hall.

            He was in his soulmate’s house, and his soulmate had no idea. It was a strange feeling, but Nezumi didn’t have time to dwell on it or the strangeness of the bakery boy.

            He walked across the room, passing the bed on which a blue towel now lay next to the pile of neatly folded clothes intended for him. It would be rude to leave without telling Shion, to slip out while the kid was in the shower, but Nezumi had no choice.

            The alternative was having Shion see his eye color, realize they were soulmates, and however bad the kid would feel if Nezumi slipped out right now, it’d be much worse if he knew his soulmate wanted absolutely nothing to do with him, had no desire to be tied down by him, was not by any means looking for his companionship or craving anyone else to complete him.

            Nezumi opened Shion’s door, shivered in the doorway, looked back once at the kid’s room, the neatness of it, blemished by Nezumi’s wet footsteps on the carpet. He felt a pang of guilt. At least he hadn’t tracked in any mud.

            The water would dry. No real damage done.

            It would be worse if Nezumi stayed. He knew this. He listened to the thunder of the worsening storm shake the house and reminded himself that he knew this. He still had a chance to leave this kid unscathed – he had to take it, he had to leave before this anchor pulled him down, before severing their ties became painful.

            They shouldn’t have even had ties. Nezumi hated the idea of soulmates – the idea that someone else out there was destined to be with him, and he with them. Everyone was out for themselves. Destiny didn’t change that, didn’t stop people from disappearing, from leaving. Letting himself be completed by another only put Nezumi at risk to be ripped apart and left broken.

            Nezumi wouldn’t be letting that happen. He’d been broken once and preferred not to be again.

            Maybe it was selfish to leave Shion without a soulmate, but Nezumi didn’t see anything wrong with selfishness. It was self-preservation. It was smart.

            He passed the bathroom on the way to the stairs, heard the kid humming in the shower, some tuneless thing. He hesitated, almost knocked, had no idea why the urge came about him and shoved his hands into his pockets.

            He shivered again, was walking down the stairs now, taking them carefully so as not to wake Shion’s sleeping mother.

            He opened the front door of the bakery, and immediately the wind and rain crept in, staining the doorway, chilling him through his clothing.

            Nezumi took a breath, replaced his hood, and walked out into the storm.

*

It was better this way.

            Shion knew that.

            Nezumi wasn’t even his soulmate. It was ridiculous that he’d had any hope, any desire. His soulmate was probably out there, waiting for him, while Shion was wasting his time falling for some man he didn’t even belong with, he didn’t even really love.

            Right?

            He couldn’t love a stranger. He couldn’t fall for anyone that wasn’t his soulmate. He couldn’t ache for someone who wasn’t The One.

            It didn’t make sense, that even so, Shion managed to ache so badly it kept him awake, tossing and turning as the storm waged on outside.

*

Nezumi sneezed.

            He wondered if his understudy would notice the bright white hair shining in the back of the audience through the darkness.

            He wondered if Shion had even shown up.

            He sneezed again, closed his eyes, and willed himself to sleep, hoping it would be dreamless.

*


	2. Chapter 2

People came to the theater just to see Nezumi. Tickets were sold out because of Nezumi.

            The fact that it had been two weeks since Nezumi showed up was not producing happy customers, who at first were offered complete refunds, but had grown tired of this.

            They did not come for refunds. They came for Nezumi.

            Shion, from his position in the back of the theater, watched as the days went by and the seats began to empty again. He felt bad for Nezumi’s understudy, a beautiful girl with considerable talent who was not receiving any attention simply because Nezumi outshone her.

            Nezumi outshone everyone. It was hardly fair to compare the other actors to him.

            For the first week, Shion figured Nezumi had gotten sick from the storm, was out for that reason alone. By the second week, he wasn’t sure. Scrolling through the theater magazines online, Shion saw that there were rumors that Nezumi had left this theater, left the town entirely.

            It was nothing but speculation. Shion didn’t know if it was plausible or implausible. Plausibility did not seem to apply to Nezumi.

            And anyway, Shion was becoming less concerned himself with what was plausible or implausible. He no longer believed it mattered. Sometimes things happened, other times they didn’t. Life was unpredictable, and he had been foolish to try and predict it, to get his hopes up over something that had no hope at all, to feel so empty when he’d had no reason to feel full.

            Soon, the theater audience had even less occupants than had been present before Nezumi was a known name. The people dwindled, but Shion attended every show.

            He did not expect to see the missing actor. He only went because it was something to do, and suddenly Shion felt as though he had too much time and nothing to fill it with.

            Three months after Nezumi’s disappearance, Shion was one of five among the members of the audience. On walking out from an early play, he flipped open his program. It was simply routine, by that point, to check for Nezumi’s picture, but today he could not find it on its usual page, and had to flip carefully, stopping in the middle of the sidewalk.

            He went page by page. Examined each picture. Nezumi’s was not among them.

            Shion swallowed, closed his fist around the program, then let his hand relax. He walked to the nearest trashcan and threw the program into it.

            He had no right to feel like crying, and so he didn’t, blinked quickly instead until his eyes no longer burned.

*

Nezumi had a callback at a theater an hour’s walk away.

            This would have been perfect about a year before, when he’d wanted a longer commute, when he’d wanted something to do to fill the hours of each day.

            Now, the walk was tiring. Nezumi was exhausted. His body ached, and no matter how much sleep he got, he felt no more energized than the night before.

            He took to waking early, as there was no point in sleeping. He began watching the sunrise. There was a particular moment in each sunrise when streaks of red would slice through the sky, and Nezumi waited for these moments.

            Red did not remind him of fire.

            It did not make him think of blood.

            It was not anger, it was not pain.

            Red was only these quickly fading stripes of the early morning sky and a pair of wide eyes, dripping in a storm.

*

“Hey, Mom?”

            Shion watched his mother look up at him. She seemed startled, and Shion realized he’d been eating his meals in silence recently.

            He felt immediately ashamed. He was probably making his mother worry. He tried to look happy, and offered his mother a small smile that pulled at his cheeks.

            “Did you ever meet your soulmate?” he asked, wondering why he’d never asked before.

            She was an adult. He’d just taken it for granted that she had. He’d taken it for granted that everyone did, that it was just a part of life, but now he was beginning to suspect that life wasn’t so easy, wasn’t so straightforward.

            Karan smiled, placed her fork down on her plate. “I did.”

            There was a sense of relief in this. Shion was glad his mother had not felt the emptiness he did, the incompleteness. “Was it my father?”

            Karan tucked a few strands of hair behind her ears. She seemed older than Shion remembered. He loved her so much it ached, and he wanted to tell her this, but felt silly and stayed quiet.

            “No, actually. He was a man I knew before your father.”

            Shion squinted. “What happened to him?”

            “Oh,” his mother said, laughing slightly and waving her hand, “nothing. It was a long time ago. He left.”

            “Left? How could he leave? He was your soulmate.”

            “Honey, it doesn’t always work out so perfectly. Finding your soulmate isn’t always the hard part. Sometimes it’s the keeping them that’s hard. We found each other when we were very young, just children. I remember, my friends told me I was so lucky,” Karan said, looking down at her plate.

            Shion bit his lip. He had never known this.

             “And then his family had to move to America for his father’s new job. He didn’t have any say, of course. We promised each other we’d reunite – we were soulmates, after all, so even though it was sad, it didn’t seem like the end.” Karan glanced up, offered another gentle smile as if assuring Shion she wasn’t upset, but Shion would not have thought less of his mother if she had been sad.

            He would have thought it was human. He would have thought it was right.

            “Did you ever see him again?” Shion asked, but he thought he knew the answer.     

            His mother traced the edge of her glass with her forefinger. “No, I did not. As we grew older, his mother got sick, and by that time his father had died. He had to take care of his mother, and took a job in the States, the first one he could get. I had already opened my own bakery here by then. I didn’t have enough money to go to America yet. By the time I did, you had been born, and I didn’t want to uproot you. My life was here, with you.”

            Shion shook his head. “I don’t understand. Why would you bother with anyone else if you had already found your soulmate?”

            Karan smiled. “The one thing I’d always wanted was a child. My soulmate knew this. We both knew by the time we’d get to see each other again, we might be too old to have children. He did not want me to have to risk that. So we told each other that we’d find each other again in another life, and agreed to move on.”

            “But – He was your soulmate! Are you still in touch? Why can’t you find him now? Why can’t you be with him now?” Shion felt hot, his stomach turning. This wasn’t right. This wasn’t how it was supposed to happen.

            “He has a family now, Shion. I don’t expect you to understand. You’re so young. Being in love is wonderful, but it is not everything. For me, being a mother was everything. We made our decisions, and though things could have ended differently, I am happy with how my life turned out. I have you, Shion, and I wouldn’t have had you if I had cared only about following my soulmate around the world. Life is about choices. Sometimes it’s comforting to know that you can fall back on destiny, but for me, I preferred to make my own life, whether or not it was what the universe had in store.”

            Shion didn’t know what to do with this information. He didn’t know why his mother hadn’t told him this before, but for some reason, it felt incredibly important.

            “Shion, is there something you want to tell me?” Karan asked, voice soft, and Shion looked up at her, knew he could tell his mother anything, thought about the countless black and white photographs in the programs he had collected in the bottom drawer of his desk, thought about the feeling of his heart pounding louder than thunder, thought about the rain falling on his cheeks as he watched a pair of lips fold so gently over his name as if it were something breakable.

            “I think I fell in love with the wrong person,” Shion admitted, so quietly he was amazed when his mother replied.

            “It is never wrong to love somebody, Shion.”

            “Even when they leave?” Shion asked. _Even when it hurts?_

            “Oh, hon. Having a broken heart hurts, but that doesn’t mean it’s wrong,” Karan said, standing up, coming around the table and winding her arms around Shion, who sagged into her warm body.

            He hadn’t realized, until her embrace, that he’d felt cold for so long. He hadn’t realized how hard it was to breathe until he was finally able to take a deep breath.

            Although he felt by no means full, at least he didn’t feel quite as hollow.

*

At his new theater, Nezumi didn’t even tell his manager his real name. He kept it Eve, only Eve, and soon realized he had not heard his name spoken aloud in months.

            He said it once, in the grimy mirror of his bathroom, close enough to the glass so that it fogged with the condensation of his identity.

            “Nezumi,” he whispered. It felt like a secret. One that soon no one would know but him. He wondered if he’d ever forget it.

            It wouldn’t matter. Nezumi wasn’t his real name. He’d learned that names meant nothing. Identities were disposable. He could be one person one day and a different the next.

            That was the freedom of independence. It was why he loved acting. Slipping into different skin. Choosing a different life every hour.

            He was never held back by who he might have been a moment before. The past did not matter. The past was irrelevant.

            Without an identity, the past did not exist.

            But one thing Nezumi could not shake from the past was the color red. It followed him everywhere. In the petals of roses in people’s yards. In the markings his manager made on his script. On the shirt he wore, or the lipstick she wore, or the scars on his back that he only noticed months after he’d gotten his new job.

            The scars had always been white before Nezumi saw Shion, but now they were a dull red, and this didn’t make sense because scars were not supposed to stay red, but maybe burns did, Nezumi didn’t know, he’d never cared to know.

            Now the color followed him everywhere he went, stuck on his back, a reminder of a past he did not want, a past that was not his, that belonged to some other version of himself he was eager to be rid of.

            But he couldn’t get it off of him. The color was a part of his very own body, and with it, the reminder of Shion, his goddamn soulmate.

            He didn’t believe in needing someone else to feel whole, but there remained the fact that he felt cracked open, breaking at the seams, checking on his scars daily to see if they were growing, sure they were ripping inches every night, tearing him open slowly.

            Nezumi felt himself going crazy. He thought about moving. Leaving the new theater he was at and finding another. Maybe a new job entirely. No reminders of the past then – except his scars, but he’d never look at them again, just ignore them, pretend they weren’t there.

            He’d throw out all of his red clothing. He’d close his eyes when he passed gardens. He’d never look at the sky again.

            Nezumi knew it wouldn’t be enough. He was unable to shake Shion from his head, even when he didn’t see red. It was some kind of psychological thing, he knew. Just knowing Shion was his soulmate made the kid unshakeable – it wasn’t like Nezumi had any real attraction to the boy. He didn’t even know the guy, other than that he’d been strange, unexpected, like no one Nezumi had ever met.

            He’d been warm, too, but Nezumi wasn’t sure how he had come to this conclusion, as he couldn’t remember ever touching the kid. Maybe in his dreams, but dreams meant nothing, were musings of an unconscious mind, and Nezumi never paid attention to his, forgot them quickly anyway.

            So when he woke from a particularly vivid dream, stuffed with hues of red and crashes of thunder, Nezumi was relieved at the assumption that at least the images would fade in time.

            Instead, they stuck with him, seemed to follow him, and on his walk to the new theater that wasn’t quite new anymore, Nezumi found himself turning around, walking the opposite way, passing his apartment and heading down the once-familiar path to a town with squashed houses and cobblestone and a quaint bakery and one particular person he had no desire to see – maybe just a little desire, just enough to crash his heart against his ribs with every step.

            How ridiculous. He knew it. Hated his pulse. Hated that he kept walking, did not slow, might in fact have quickened, was at the entrance of the bakery much too quickly, was not turning back and instead opening the doors he’d entered once, months ago, the same night he’d left leaving wet footprints on a white carpet.

            He regretted it. The footprints. The leaving. Nezumi had spent his entire life avoiding regret, but he felt it suffocating him. He nearly stumbled into the bakery, which was empty but for a woman sitting at a table in the corner, reading a newspaper and drinking tea.

            Nezumi stared at the woman for a moment, then walked slowly to the counter, consciously slowing his breaths. He glanced at the baked goods inside, remembered how Shion had said they were all freshly baked that morning by his mother.

            There was a bell on the counter, but Nezumi did not ring it. He was not in a hurry. He wasn’t even supposed to be there. He was still trying to leave, reminding himself it would be better to leave, maybe he’d regret it again but at least his heart would stop beating so loudly – this surely was not healthy. The last time his heart beat this loudly, he’d been burning, it was wrong, he didn’t want this, he didn’t want –

            “Oh, hello, have you been waiting long?”

            Nezumi looked up. A woman had appeared behind the counter, kind eyes crinkled, hair in a messy bun. She wore a pink apron. Her smile was familiar.

            Nezumi was not the one who’d been waiting. He had never waited, not for anyone, and he shrugged, knowing this was not what the woman was asking.

            She was looking at him intently now, a little too closely, leaning forward slightly, and Nezumi rubbed the back of his neck, used to people looking at him but not to such careful scrutiny.

            “You’re here for Shion,” she said, before Nezumi could say anything – not that he had any idea what he would have said.

            Nezumi tucked his bangs behind his ear. Nothing hid his eyes. Maybe Shion’s mother knew what eye color to look for for her son.

            “I am,” he replied, even though he was supposed to say no and leave while he could.

            “He’s not here,” the woman said, and Nezumi convinced himself that he felt only relief. “He’s at the theater.”

            Nezumi nodded, backed away from the counter. “Thank you,” he offered, and then he was out the door. The theater was not around the corner, as Shion had lied, and Nezumi was glad of this, needed a longer walk to think about what he was doing, how he shouldn’t be doing it.

            He was not going to stay with Shion. He was not going to be the proper soulmate. He was only going to disappoint the kid, and for no good reason other than that he’d dreamed of him and couldn’t stop wishing he hadn’t woken up.

            Nezumi was quickly sick of his thoughts. Was glad to be at the theater doors, which he wrenched open, realizing too late that he didn’t have a ticket and tickets were always sold out.

            He glanced at the ticket box, expecting the familiar “SOLD OUT” sticker to be plastered across, but the sticker was absent, and in its place a sign boasted reduced prices.

            Nezumi stepped forward, and the ticket seller glanced up from her phone, eyes widening on Nezumi.

            “Ticket for the current show. The top row, preferably,” Nezumi said, unearthing the few bucks he had in his pocket, grateful for the reduced prices as otherwise he would not have made it.

            “Aren’t you – You’re Nezumi.”

            “Is there room in the top row?” Nezumi prodded, flashing a smile, and the girl blushed and nodded quickly.

            “Oh, yes, of course, but – Are you sure? You could sit anywhere – ”

            “That’ll be fine, thank you,” Nezumi said, sliding his money through the slot, and he was offered back a ticket.

            “Are you back?” the girl asked, after Nezumi had turned away and started towards the entrance.

            He glanced over his shoulder. “Let’s keep this encounter a secret,” he offered, smiling again, and at the girl’s further nodding he let himself into the theater.

            The doors let out in the middle row of seats, and Nezumi was quickly able to scan them and observe that hardly anyone was present.

            But he wasn’t here for anyone. He was here for just one, and he climbed the stairs slowly, watching the familiar sprout of white hair grow closer and closer with each step.

            Shion wasn’t looking in his direction. His eyes were on the stage, and Nezumi stopped walking two steps from the top, feet from the boy.

            He stared at Shion for a long moment, waiting for his heart to pound in that strange way, but instead he just felt calm, peaceful, finally, after months of feeling as though his skin was ripping apart.

            He continued watching Shion for half a minute more, then turned and walked back down the steps he’d just climbed. He exited through the door he’d come in, and the ticket girl glanced up at him.

            “Not my favorite play,” Nezumi said, shrugging. “I’ll wait here.”

            “Oh – Okay, yeah, that’s fine. Did you – Did you need anything?” the girl asked, and Nezumi smiled at her again.

            “Just the time.”

            “It’s, umm, it’s half past three.”

            There was always a two o’ clock production, which meant the play had a half hour left to go.

            Nezumi settled against the wall. He was not impatient. A half hour was not a long time to wait. After all, most people waited years for their soulmates – a half hour was nothing.

            The first people to exit out the door beside Nezumi were an elderly couple who stared at Nezumi as they passed. Nezumi nodded at them, relieved they didn’t try to engage in conversation.

            He watched a few more people stream out until the person he watched was the boy from the bakery.

            Shion was looking down as he exited, flipping through his program as if looking for something, and Nezumi waited for him to look up, but when he did, it was only to glance at the ticket girl.

            “See you,” he said, and the girl smiled at him and waved.

            “See you Thursday, Shion!” she said, waving cheerfully.

            Nezumi watched from his wall for another moment, but then Shion was leaving the building, and Nezumi was forced to follow, waving behind his shoulder when the ticket girl gave him a cheery goodbye as well.

            Nezumi stayed several paces behind Shion, off to the side so he could watch the boy continue to flip through the program until he got to the end, after which he threw the thing out in the trashcan beside him and continued walking.

            The strange behavior fascinated Nezumi, but he didn’t pause to think about it. Instead, he strode forward, legs longer than Shion’s and bringing him beside the boy at the corner of the next block, where he stopped.

            “Hello, Shion,” he said, and then Shion stopped too, glancing suddenly behind his shoulder mid-step so that he lost his balance, and Nezumi reached out, grabbed his arm. “Easy,” he murmured, and he smiled, remembering their first encounter.

            It amazed him, that this was only their second. So much time had passed. A waste, but Nezumi wouldn’t dwell on it.

            He couldn’t, not with Shion looking at him the way he was, his eyes widening on Nezumi’s. Nezumi was a bit alarmed by the way the kid was looking at him – like he’d found his soulmate, which was the entirely case, but still, something about the kid’s look was cliché, too exaggerated to be real.

            Even so, Nezumi had a feeling this kid was completely genuine, and that was even worse. This was exactly what Nezumi didn’t want. Someone crazy about him for no good reason – what did he have to do with the color of his eyes? It had nothing to do with who he really was. A mutation of genes that meant nothing – it didn’t mean Nezumi could be trusted, it didn’t mean Nezumi could give Shion everything the boy would no doubt be expecting, it didn’t mean Nezumi could complete anyone.

            “But – Was it always you?” Shion asked, after another moment of staring.

            Nezumi let go of the kid’s arm. Took a step back.

            “Yeah,” he said slowly. He needed to leave. This was a mistake.

            Shion looked away from Nezumi, was glancing around, and Nezumi knew why. He was looking for things that would suddenly turn silver.

            Nezumi looked around as well. A railing across the street shone silver, as did the nails in a sign hung on the wall of a shop. Tilting his chin to examine the sky, no silver could be found.    

            Not a very exciting color. Nezumi felt a little bad for the kid. He’d get to see the real color of some scraps of metal now. Thrilling.

            “It’s beautiful,” Shion murmured. “My mom was right.”

            Nezumi narrowed his eyes. There was definitely something wrong with the kid, who was staring at him again, eyes moving between his.

            “Why couldn’t I see silver before? I’ve been to all of your plays. I’ve seen you countless times,” Shion said, clearly making no effort to hide his obsession.

            Nezumi shrugged. “I doubt you ever saw my eyes from the top row. Look, that doesn’t matter. This whole soulmate thing – I don’t want to disappoint you. I don’t know you. You’re expecting to just find your soulmate and be complete and fall in love and that shit they feed to us as children, but none of that is actually real. Knowing you’re my soulmate doesn’t make you any different from anyone else, and – ”

            “That’s not what I was expecting,” Shion interrupted, and Nezumi stopped, blinked.

            He stared at the boy, waiting for elaboration, as he wasn’t entirely sure what Shion was referring to.

            “I mean, I didn’t expect to find my soulmate and fall in love. Of course, at one point I did, but that was before I met you.”

            Nezumi narrowed his eyes, didn’t trust the boy’s small smile, the way he shrugged slightly and glanced away from Nezumi.

            “I didn’t think I’d find my soulmate and fall in love because I had already fallen in love. To tell you the truth, I almost didn’t want to meet my soulmate. I knew I could never love them as much.”

            “As much as whom, exactly?” Nezumi asked cautiously, folding his arms over his chest. He wasn’t sure if he understood Shion completely.

            He wasn’t sure if he wanted to.

            Shion glanced back up. “You, of course,” he said, simply, like it was just a fact, and that’s how people treated love.

            Like it was a fact. A given. Nothing that had to be worked at, nothing that took effort, just a natural way of life – find a soulmate, be in love, it was all routine, all in the plan.

            But Shion hadn’t known Nezumi was his soulmate. What right did he have, saying he loved him like it was some indisputable truth?

            “It worked out, since you’re my soulmate, but I agree with you,” Shion was continuing. “It doesn’t matter if we’re soulmates. That doesn’t effect whether I love you or not. I loved you when you weren’t my soulmate – at least that I knew of – and I would have loved you even if you never were.”

            Nezumi winced, took a step back. He’d never heard anyone throw around the word love so casually, so confidently. “Are you hearing what you’re saying?”

            “Of course,” Shion replied happily, smiling.

            A complete lunatic, Nezumi suspected.

            “You can’t just say you love a person like that. Do you even know what that word means? You don’t even know me. That’s my point, it’s not supposed to be easy, it’s not simple the way you think it is. It’s not some switch you just turn on and off,” Nezumi snapped.

            Shion’s smile shifted, and he nodded. “I know that,” he said quietly. “Nothing about loving you has been easy, Nezumi. I tried to turn it off, when I thought you weren’t my soulmate, and then when you were gone. I know that it’s impossible. Maybe I don’t know you as well as I’d like to, but I want to know you more than I’ve ever wanted anything. So much that it hurts. I don’t think that’s simple.”

            Nezumi swallowed. He shook his head. He wanted Shion to stop talking. He didn’t understand how Shion could be so sure about something that was so absolutely terrifying.

            People spoke about love like it was something special, something they wanted, but Nezumi knew what love did. It made losing people that much harder. It made a person dependent, it made them weak, and he didn’t want it, didn’t understand how Shion could want it when he knew that it hurt, he knew how awful it could be.

            “Nezumi,” Shion said softly, stepping forward. “I’m not asking you to love me. I don’t think you owe me anything. I don’t want you to feel as though you’re under any obligation to me, just because we’re soulmates. I think I understand that now, or I’m beginning to, I’m trying to, I promise. A soulmate isn’t someone who you have to feel tied down to. It’s someone who has the power to give you happiness in whatever way you want it.”

            Nezumi gritted hit teeth. If Shion didn’t want him to love him, Nezumi didn’t know what he wanted. He had nothing to give. “I can’t give you happiness, Shion.”

            Shion looked at Nezumi softly, like Nezumi was a child, and he felt small, confused, uncertain. “Why did you come back?”

            Nezumi exhaled roughly, ran a hand through his bangs. He looked away from Shion, at the sky instead. It was all blue, no signs of red. It looked wrong, somehow. It looked empty.

            _I felt as though you were pulling me back here, anchoring me to this place, to you. There was no other choice, no other way. I had to come back to you._

            Nezumi glanced down at his soulmate. The boy should have been a stranger – but he was not, was he?

            It felt too right around him, for him to be a stranger. For him to be just another person on this earth. He was not like any other person, and no matter what else he was, this fact was inescapable.

            Nezumi would not forget him, be able to put him into the past, and maybe he did not want to.

            “Because I had to,” he admitted, and he wasn’t sure what he meant, but Shion did not seem to doubt him, only smiled softly as though he understood what Nezumi didn’t understand himself, and Nezumi didn’t feel so uncertain anymore, didn’t feel quite so scared.

*

When Shion came out of the shower, part of him was certain Nezumi would not be in his room, waiting where Shion had left him.          

            Part of him was sure it would be just like the night months before, returning to his room to find the towel and clothing for Nezumi folded on the bed where’d he’d left them and no trace of the actor but wet footprints on his carpet.

            And so when he opened his bedroom door to find the room empty, though his sadness was sharp in his chest, he was not completely surprised. He took another step into his empty room, ran his towel through his hair, glanced at his mirror.

            The boy in the reflection watched back with wet hair and red eyes. Shion felt his shoulders sag and watched the shoulders in the reflection fall too.

            He was not mad at Nezumi. He had told Nezumi that he expected nothing from him, that there was no obligation to stay, and that was the truth.

            Shion would not be a burden.

            He finished drying his hair, turned away from the mirror, and left his empty room to hang his towel in the bathroom. He heard the clinking of silverware from the kitchen below and descended the steps, thinking a midnight snack with his mother would be good to get his mind off his elusive soulmate.

            Somewhere along the middle of the steps, he heard his mother’s voice, soft and chastising from the kitchen.

            “Not so fast! Mix it slowly, in folds, there you go, just like that. You’re not punishing the batter. Baking is something very delicate.”

            Shion crept down the last of the steps, walked around the display counter to the doorway of the kitchen, peered around the frame and saw his mother sprinkling sugar into a silver bowl.

            Mixing the contents of the bowl was Nezumi, pink apron-clad, holding the wooden spoon tightly and folding the mixture with slow and deliberate movements, not at all in line with the graceful, easy gestures Shion had come to expect from him.

            Nezumi glanced up after a moment, silver eyes locking on Shion’s. His bangs fell forward, but they were quickly clipped back by Shion’s mother, who had to reach up as Nezumi was taller than her.

            “Always clip or tie your hair back when you bake. You don’t want hair in the food.”          

            Nezumi looked ridiculous with his mother’s yellow clip pulling his hair back from his forehead.

            He also looked stunning, and Shion was amazed by this, almost as amazed as he was to find his soulmate baking in his kitchen.

            “Hi,” Nezumi said, voice quiet and soothing, and Shion smiled.

            “Hi.”

            “What did I just tell you?” Karan interrupted, slapping Nezumi’s hand so that he dropped the spoon and stared at her.

            “Ow,” he murmured.

            “Don’t pretend an old woman could hurt such a strong man like you. Now go sit, when you bake you have to focus completely, and it’s clear you’re distracted. I’ll bring these out for the two of you when they’re done.”

            “I’m not – ”

            “Go on!” Karan insisted, laughing and pushing Nezumi gently, and he gave in, stepped away from the counter and untied his apron, which Karan took.

            Nezumi walked towards Shion, raising his eyebrows, and Shion noted that he seemed to have forgotten the yellow clip holding up his bangs.

            He grinned, and Nezumi narrowed his eyes. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

            “No reason,” Shion replied, turning and leading Nezumi to a table by the window. He pulled the chairs down from the table and placed them down for him and Nezumi, who sat across from him and glanced out the window.

            Shion was glad that Nezumi was looking out the window. It allowed him to stare at the man freely. He’d never seen Nezumi so up close without the rain falling from his eyelashes, blurring his vision.

            Nezumi rested his chin on his palm, his elbow on the table. His wrist was pale enough for Shion to see tangled lines of blue-green veins. Shion wrapped his fingers around each other on the table, squeezed his hands together so as not to give in to the urge to reach out and trace the trails of Nezumi’s pulse.

            “I’m not going to marry you,” Nezumi said suddenly, to the window, and Shion glanced up at his face, watched his jawbone, traced his profile, examined the curve of his eyelashes.

            “Now, or ever?” Shion asked.

            Nezumi glanced at him, not turning his head, just sliding his eyes so that he peeked at Shion from just the corners.

            “You’re not going to propose? Isn’t that what soulmates do?”

            “I’d imagine. But not immediately. We haven’t even been on a date,” Shion pointed out.

             “Date?”

            Shion nodded eagerly, leaning forward. “Yeah, it’s what people did before we evolved to have soulmates. They dated people – went out to eat and talk with people they were interested in, to get to know them. To see if they fit together. I’ve read about it,” Shion said. Dating had always fascinated him. On some levels, it seemed primitive, but he was amazed by the idea of falling in love with someone slowly, hardly falling at all but something more deliberate, more meaningful.

            “Are you asking me to do this date thing with you?” Nezumi asked slowly, squinting and drawing out the word _date_ as if he was tasting it on his tongue.

            “No. I’m just saying we haven’t been on a date. We should probably do that before getting engaged.”

            “I don’t owe you any dates.”

            “I didn’t say you did.”

            “But you expect me to date you,” Nezumi said, dropping his hand from the table and turning to look at Shion fully.

            “No,” Shion said quietly, shrugging. The look Nezumi gave him now was the same Shion had stared at countless times in the black and white photographs in the theater program. No expression at all. Nothing but a long stare. “But I’d like you to. If you wanted.”

            Nezumi’s smooth expression rippled, only slightly, a hesitation of emotion that wasn’t pronounced enough for Shion to attempt to name it.

            Shion leaned back, unraveled his hands and spread them flat on the table. “It’s like I said before. I don’t want you to force yourself to be with me because you think you have to be, or you think I believe you have to be. I know you don’t have to be here with me. But I want you to be. I want you, Nezumi, and I won’t apologize for that, I won’t pretend I don’t so you won’t feel any obligation to be here.”

             Shion had asked his mother how it felt, to be with her soulmate. She’d told him it felt like being alone with her own thoughts, but being free to speak them out loud while enjoying the warmth of another person beside her.

            Shion hadn’t quite understood what she’d meant, but now he thought he did. Shion did not want to pretend. To act like anyone else. He would be himself, and he would speak his thoughts, and he would not deny the truth that carved deeper into his heart with every beat.

            He wanted to trust Nezumi with everything he had, everything he was. He wanted to trust his soulmate with his life, whether or not his soulmate chose to be a part of it.

            Nezumi looked at Shion for a long moment, then shook his head, exhaled, turned away from him and glanced back out the window. The sky fell across his features, illuminated by the setting sun that stretched through the glass and melted on the canvas of Nezumi’s pale skin.

            “I knew you were insane,” he said finally, resting his chin on his palm again.

            Shion ignored the burning of his chest. “Please don’t patronize me.”

            “I’m not. I’ve never heard such a speech. And I read drama for a living.”

            “Nezumi,” Shion mumbled, curling into himself, pulling his hands into his lap and wrapping his fingers around each other again, squeezing tight. He stared down at his knees.

            “Since I first saw you, the sky has looked different. I never noticed the sky before, but now I find myself looking at it day,” Nezumi said softly, and Shion peeked up at him, surprised by the change in topic.

            “Why are you talking about the sky, Nezumi?” he asked quietly, waiting for Nezumi to look at him again. The silver of his eyes was more beautiful than any sky Shion had ever seen, and Shion didn’t know how Nezumi could waste his time looking at such a thing.

            “I’m not talking about the sky, Shion. I’m talking about you. Maybe not as bluntly as you vomit your feelings, but we can’t all share your ability of primitive articulation.”

            Shion narrowed his eyes. “I don’t understand.”

            Nezumi leaned across the table, looked closely at Shion. “Let me elaborate for you then. Everyday I see your eyes in the streaks across the sky. You may say I am under no obligation to you, but you can’t know that. I am tied to you. I thought I wasn’t, I told myself I wasn’t, but it’s obvious, isn’t it? I would not have come back here if I wasn’t tied to you.”

            Shion leaned forward too, just the smallest bit. “And you detest me for it?” he asked, thinking he understood Nezumi’s reluctance, worried, yes, but more than that, curious.

            “I should,” Nezumi mused, quietly, and he looked at Shion as though he was confused, as though he wasn’t sure himself why he couldn’t answer Shion’s question easily.

            “Maybe it’s not such a bad thing to be tied to someone else. People aren’t always anchors. They don’t always have to pull you down. Sometimes they might pull you forward,” Shion reasoned softly, leaning closer still.

            He wanted to kiss this man who watched him so warily. He wanted to fill this man with the certainty that overflowed his own veins.

            “How do I know what kind of person you are?” Nezumi asked, and Shion smiled, watched the curve of his lips because he loved them, the softness of them, the hesitation of them.

            “You could go on a date with me and find out,” Shion suggested, and Nezumi’s lips froze, then cracked open as he laughed, leaning back in his chair and grinning at Shion even when he stopped.

            “Insane,” he said again, but he was still smiling, and Shion’s fingers unraveled on his lap.

            Outside the window, the sky changed color like leaves in the fall.

*


	3. Chapter 3

Shion liked to ask questions.

            At first, Nezumi thought it was only because they were just getting to know each other, but he quickly realized that the boy seemed convinced he could never know enough.

            He always wanted _more._ When it came to information, the kid was insatiable, and Nezumi was not used to being around someone so goddamn nosy.

            _Will you mind your own business?_ he’d snapped once, two weeks into their “dating,” or whatever it was Shion kept rambling on about.

            _But you are my business_ , Shion had replied, sincerely as anything, and Nezumi learned it was best not to protest. He’d rather have to deal with the kid’s incessant interrogation than risk another too blunt declaration of insanity.

            That was another problem. Shion not only asked questions, but provided answers to questions Nezumi had not asked and never planned to. He found it necessary to admit thoughts Nezumi had no desire of knowing, and more often than not, the subject of those thoughts was Nezumi himself.

            _I know you’ve heard this before, but I wanted you to hear it from me. You’re incredibly beautiful, Nezumi. I could look at you for hours,_ Shion had said one night, walking home after one of Nezumi’s plays.

            Nezumi had laughed, but inwardly he’d felt jolted. The kid was right – Nezumi had heard many times before that he was beautiful, and often in more eloquent words than he suspected Shion could ever spew.

            But no one had ever said such a thing so simply, without any other motive. Shion didn’t want anything from Nezumi, wasn’t complimenting him for any other reason than that Shion seemed to feel the need to speak every truth he felt. He was too genuine, frank, honest, where Nezumi was used to deceit, alternative motives, secrets.

            The kid threw him off. No matter how many days seemed to pass, Nezumi could never quite get used to him, understand him. He stopped trying to get to the bottom of what exactly it was Shion wanted. The boy never suggested anything like marriage, never even tried to kiss Nezumi. Other than that day at the bakery, he didn’t speak of love.

            He simply seemed content to be around Nezumi, to want nothing else than Nezumi’s presence, which Nezumi was surprised to find himself more and more willing to give.

            A few months passed to find Nezumi taking a break after washing the dishes in Karan’s kitchen, grabbing a chair off a table he’d wiped a half hour before and slumping down in it, exhausted.

            Though Karan refused to let Nezumi cook during baking hours – preferring to give him private lessons when they didn’t have any customers to feed – she always found him other jobs to do. He enjoyed it, had taken a liking to Karan and her bakery, but the extra labor wore him out, especially on top of his long commutes from the theater at the far town.

            Shion appeared out of the kitchen a few minutes after Nezumi had sat down and pulled off his apron before sitting across from Nezumi.

            “You look tired,” he said, leaning closer to Nezumi, who shrugged.

            “It’s late.”

            “You look tired even when it’s not late.”

            “I’m fine,” Nezumi replied, blowing his bangs up from his forehead.

            They fell back a moment later, this time in his eyes, and he was about to tuck them behind his ears, but Shion beat him to it, reaching out with fingers that hardly brushed over his skin.

            Shion moved his hand like it was nothing, like Nezumi’s entire body hadn’t tensed, on edge after such a casual touch, as if touches could be something casual.

            “Come back to our theater. It’s so much closer.”

            “Not to my place,” Nezumi lied. The theater in this town was closer to his place, not that it mattered, as he was hardly ever at his house anymore other than nights.

            “They’d take you back immediately, I’m sure of it,” Shion continued, folding his arms and resting them on the table.

            “I don’t want to be taken back. I have a good job.”

            “It’s too far!” Shion complained, scrunching his face like a child. “Walking all the way over there for each of your plays is exhausting.”

            “Then stop coming,” Nezumi said simply, and Shion frowned.

            “I can’t do that,” he replied, as if Nezumi had said something ridiculous, and Nezumi sighed.

            “So I should just abandon the job I have and go through the trouble of getting a new one just so it’s more convenient for you?” Nezumi asked, smirking, but Shion seemed to be taking his question seriously.

            “Not just for me. You come here almost every day, so really I just wish you’d do something that’s more convenient for you.”

            Nezumi examined the kid. He had said he would not tie Nezumi down, yet here he was, already asking Nezumi to change around his life to fit his own, acting like it wasn’t selfish.

            Shion smiled gently at him, and Nezumi sighed. No matter what he told himself, he could no longer convince himself that the kid was selfish. Shion wasn’t trying to tie Nezumi down, and Nezumi knew this, had a hard time wrapping his head around it, but he knew it.

            He knew he could trust his soulmate, but it was still difficult. Unnatural. Went against everything Nezumi had ever known.

            “I’ll think about it,” he conceded, and Shion smiled wider, so happy at such a simple thing – he was absurd, but Nezumi already knew this.

            “Come with me, I want to show you something,” Shion said, standing suddenly and grabbing Nezumi’s hand to pull him up.

            Nezumi tightened his fingers around Shion’s, pulling him back to slow him down as he was yanked off his chair and out of the bakery.

            “I haven’t finished drying the dishes – ”

            “They can wait!” Shion said happily, and Nezumi gave in, allowed himself to be dragged by Shion down the street.

            Shion led him down the block on the opposite side of where Nezumi’s old theater had been. He’d never been on this side of town, as most of the shops surrounded the theater, but he didn’t protest, let himself trust the kid who guided him excitedly, as he did most things.

            He’d slowed to a walk now, and Nezumi walked beside him, but Shion didn’t release Nezumi’s hand, and Nezumi didn’t mind. He liked the solid pressure of Shion’s fingers and palm. Wanted more, and this was terrifying to consider, so tempting to consider, maybe he should consider it –

            “Okay, we’re here,” Shion said, stopping, and Nezumi stopped too, looked around at what was mostly small houses squashed against each other.

            It occurred to Nezumi that this was Shion’s way of proposing that they live together. Maybe the kid had already leased a house, was completely prepared despite their agreement to ignore the presumptuous nature of typical soulmates.

            The small amount of trust Nezumi had formed cracked at the edges, and he pulled his hand away from Shion’s, tucking his still-warm fingers into his pocket.

            “Isn’t it beautiful?” Shion asked, and Nezumi blinked at the houses, not entirely sure he’d call them beautiful – Shion always did have a juvenile way with words. Maybe he was referring to their destiny-bound futures.

            Nezumi hunched his shoulders. He felt cold, wished he was back in the warmth of the bakery.

            “Nezumi,” Shion said, and Nezumi glanced sideways at him, at his bright eyes that watched him widely. “You’re not looking,” he whispered, pointing, and Nezumi blinked, following Shion’s finger.

            The boy was not pointing to the houses. He was pointing up, to the sky, which was entirely red, and Nezumi did not know how he hadn’t noticed this, not even on the walk over, he could not imagine how he had been so distracted.

            The feel of Shion’s hand in his, he thought, might have been the reason for his distraction, but this couldn’t be right, he wasn’t so foolish.

            “Every night the sky over by that field turns completely red at this time. I wanted to share it with you.”

            Nezumi stared at the red expanse. Shion had wanted to share the sky with him, and if that wasn’t the dumbest thing he’d ever heard – he couldn’t share the sky, the sky was not his to share, how arrogant of him to think it was.

            Even so, Nezumi found himself lifting his hand from his pocket. Maybe the sky wasn’t Shion’s, but it looked as though it belonged to him, and even if it was a crazy thought, it felt right.

            Nezumi raised his hand, not to hold Shion’s again but to touch Shion’s face, just the line of the kid’s jaw with the tip of his thumb.

            He could kiss him.

            Nezumi had kissed people before. Never put too much thought in it.

            But kissing the bakery boy would be different. Shion had doubtfully kissed anyone else – he seemed like the type to wait for his soulmate. To kiss him, Nezumi knew, would not be meaningless. It would be a promise, and even though Nezumi knew he could trust Shion, a promise was too binding.

            Not yet, not yet.

            He dropped his hand, watched Shion’s exhale, light over parted lips that perhaps had been parted for a kiss Nezumi couldn’t give him.

            “Thank you for letting me share this with you,” Shion said, as if Nezumi had had a choice with the kid pulling him all the way there – but Nezumi did have a choice, he reminded himself, he had chosen to follow Shion.

            Nezumi didn’t reply. He had nothing to say to this boy, no words to offer him that could warn him that his patience might not be enough.

            It might take a thousand skies before Nezumi could give him what he wanted, even if Nezumi wanted to give it just as much.

            “I’m glad that you’re my soulmate,” Shion said, smiling, oblivious to the fact that even now, part of Nezumi told him to get away, to leave this kid, leave this place.

            It didn’t matter that he’d begun fighting this part of him. Nezumi did not know how strong he was.

            “Let’s go home now, Nezumi,” Shion said gently, reaching out to take Nezumi’s hand again, and Nezumi turned with his soulmate, let Shion lead him back to the bakery – which was not Nezumi’s home, but Nezumi did not correct him.

            He glanced behind his shoulder and stole a last look at the sky, but it was no longer red, instead some dark color that was not nearly as beautiful.

*

Every day, Shion was surprised to find Nezumi at the door of the bakery, or meeting him outside the theater after a play, or on the street in town as if they had only casually bumped into each other despite the fact that Nezumi neither lived nor worked there.

            Shion was surprised because he was certain of two things.

            One, that he and Nezumi belonged together.

            And two, that Nezumi was not nearly as sure of this as Shion was.

            Shion wasn’t quite worried that Nezumi would disappear on him again. He trusted Nezumi to stay, but there were cracks in his trust he wished he could deny. He didn’t want to doubt Nezumi, but he couldn’t assume that Nezumi’s presence was a permanent fixture in his life. Such thoughts weren’t fair to Nezumi, or to himself if Nezumi were to leave again.

            A lifetime with Nezumi seemed implausible. But it was _possible,_ and Shion would take this, realized he needed only possibility rather than plausibility. It was enough of a reassurance, at least for now, when he’d only had Nezumi back in his life – as a real part of his life – for half a year.

            It felt like forever, but often Shion found that Nezumi distorted the way things felt, amplified them irrationally and immensely.

            Like Shion’s heartbeat, for instance, which was never quite right with Nezumi in his presence. Always too loud, too fast, but it wasn’t an uncomfortable feeling, and Shion began to wonder if maybe this was his natural state of being; for all his life before he’d met his soulmate, it was possible – though not plausible – that his heart had beat too slowly, too softly, and only now had it reached the right pace to sustain his body functions correctly.

            He worried for his heart, if Nezumi were to leave again. Worried his body had come to expect this greater flow of blood to his extremities, and any slower heartbeat would prove detrimental.

            But even though he worried for his heart, Shion did not mind that Nezumi was not as certain as he. It made every time he saw Nezumi again something thrilling, a gift rather than something he took for granted. As he came to know Nezumi, he began to understand that the man did not trust easily, nor form relationships with just anyone. It amazed Shion that Nezumi had even come back to him.

            And so it was with the usual amazement, surprise, and relief that Shion came downstairs one morning to find Nezumi in the pink apron beside his mother in the kitchen. It was late enough that Shion knew all of the baked goods meant for customers would be finished, so now was a safe time for Nezumi to continue his baking lessons with Karan.

            Shion stood off to the side of the doorway, not quite in his mother’s or Nezumi’s sight. He yawned and rubbed the sleep from his eyes, realizing he’d never seen his soulmate so early in the morning, and something about this thrilled him, seemed as if they were taking another step, even if it was small and imperceptible.

            There was something intimate, Shion thought, in seeing Nezumi while wearing the clothes he’d slept in. It mattered not that Nezumi was dressed. Shion felt the comfort of sleep still resting on the shoulders of his t-shirt, and it made him happy to mix the warmth of it with the usual warmth of Nezumi’s presence.

            “Now add a touch of salt.”

            “Salt?” Nezumi mused quietly.

            Shion’s mother, too, had spoken in a soft tone, and Shion realized they probably thought he was still asleep. He bit his lip and leaned against the doorframe.

            “It brings out the sugar,” Karan said, passing Nezumi the bowl of salt, into which he dipped his long, pale fingers.

            “I don’t think I understand that.” Nezumi dropped a pinch of salt into the mixing bowl – the silver mixing bowl, as Shion had been able to see clearly for many months now. Nezumi rubbed his forefinger and thumb together above the bowl as if to get off lingering grains.

            “Have you ever noticed that lights shine more brightly when it’s dark? That the stars are only illuminated by night? Opposites often emphasize the contradicting strengths of their counterparts, like sugar and salt. A bit of salt – but only a bit – will make anything sweeter.”

            Nezumi narrowed his eyes at the batter slightly, as if searching for some reaction within it that would confirm Karan’s explanation. He glanced back up at Karan, and Shion was again struck by his beauty.

            He had his hair tied in a low ponytail that fell over his shoulder, and his bangs were again clipped back from his face, though this time with a black barrette that blended into his hair.

            He was beautiful, he was beautiful, he was beautiful, and Shion exhaled softly, so happy that he could know this man, wishing just that was enough.

            But it wasn’t. Shion wanted more. It was not enough to ache for his soulmate – he wanted his soulmate to ache for him.

            It was selfish and conceited and exactly what Nezumi had said he had no intention of doing, but Shion wanted it anyway, was filled with longing for this man to long for him.

            “How did you learn to bake so well?” Nezumi asked, quietly again, and this surprised Shion.

            Nezumi rarely asked personal questions, almost as rarely as he answered them.

            “My soulmate’s mother was a baker. She taught me all she knew before they moved to America.”

            Nezumi was quiet for a moment. Shion hadn’t known this about his mother, and for a moment he wished he’d been the one to ask.

            “Your soulmate lives in America,” Nezumi said finally, not a question, just a statement, and Karan nodded, reaching out to hold her hand over Nezumi’s as he stirred, and she slowed his motions into softer circles.

            “He does,” she replied.

            “But you’re happy,” Nezumi said, even though Shion was certain he would end the conversation at his mother’s last reply.

            Karan stopped stirring, and Nezumi’s hand, under hers, stopped as well. She looked at him, and so did Shion, watching the way Nezumi did not look back at Karan, looked instead down into the bowl of batter, his expression smooth but for the smallest crease between his eyebrows, the slightest downturn of his lips.

            “I am happy, Nezumi. But not because my soulmate is in America. I am happy because I am around people who love me.”

            “Shion,” Nezumi murmured, and Shion’s heart stopped for a moment, jolted in his chest as if startled to hear his name, then resumed beating quietly, though faster than before.

            “Yes,” Karan said, watching Nezumi longer, then reaching out and touching his cheek. “Nezumi, look at me.”

            Nezumi looked up from the batter. His eyes were not as bright as usual, as though some of the silver had faded. Shion wrapped his arms around his waist and squeezed gently.

            “Are you getting enough sleep?” his mother asked, and Nezumi moved just slightly, not quite a flinch but enough so that Karan removed her hand from his face.

             “I’m fine.”

            “Not everything has to be as complicated as you kids seem to make it, you know,” Karan said gently, smiling a little, and Nezumi glanced at her, looked as if he had a reply, but before he said anything, his eyes shifted and caught on Shion, who felt electrified instantly, his heart immediately drumming too loudly in his chest.

            “Good morning, Shion,” Nezumi said, and Karan turned, smiled wider.

            “Morning, hon,” she said, coming over, and Shion accepted her hug and kiss on the cheek before glancing back at Nezumi.

            “Morning,” he murmured, walking into the kitchen and peering into the bowl because he did not know what to do with Nezumi’s gaze, which he could still feel on his face even as he looked away.

            “You have bedhead,” Nezumi noted, and Shion peeked up at him, was faced with the expressionless Nezumi from the black and white photograph.

            _Kiss me, kiss me, kiss me._

            “Shion always has bedhead when he wakes up,” Karan said, smiling, reaching out and ruffling Shion’s hair until he ducked away, flattening his hair with his hand and glancing back at Nezumi, who was still staring at him.

            Shion wanted to know what he was thinking. Wanted to know if it was about him. Wanted to know if it was often, if it was always, if it was everything.

            “Karan, do you mind if I take a break?” Nezumi asked, looking away from Shion, and Shion exhaled as if his breath was stolen from his lungs.

            “Go on, the batter is finished and needs to sit for a while anyway,” Karan replied, waving him off and reaching back to untie her apron.

            “Breakfast?” Nezumi asked, eyes back on Shion, who felt himself nodding numbly.

            Nezumi nodded back once, then untied his own apron and walked over to the opposite wall, hanging it before glancing back at Shion.

            “Grab a table for us, I’ll bring scones and tea.”

            Shion nodded again and stumbled forward, waved back at his mother before exiting the kitchen and walking around the display counter to a table beside a window.

            He sat and realized he was still just wearing his slippers, though he supposed it didn’t matter.

            “Blueberry, right?” Nezumi asked, pushing a plate towards Shion to announce his presence, and Shion accepted it gratefully.

            “Yes, thank you,” he said, as Nezumi placed his own scone and two mugs of tea on the table before sitting across from Shion.

            They ate silently, Nezumi looking out the window and Shion watching him. Usually, Shion was the one to initiate conversation, but he didn’t mind the silence now, was still tired from a late night and not fully awake.

            Just as Shion was finishing his tea, he noticed Nezumi was looking at him.

            “Do you want to go on a walk?” Nezumi asked, and Shion swallowed.

            “I’d have to change first.”

            “I’ll wait.”

            Shion set down his mug, then nodded. “Okay. Give me five minutes,” he replied, stacking Nezumi’s empty plate on top of his and grabbing both their mugs to deposit in the kitchen before heading upstairs to change.

            He often took walks with Nezumi, but there was something different about his soulmate today, though he couldn’t name it. He dressed quickly, just jeans and a sweater, only remembering to exchange his slippers for shoes halfway down the stairs. He ran up again, pulled on his shoes, then dashed back down, spotting Nezumi outside the front window.

            Shion called back into the kitchen to his mother that he was going out, then exited the bakery, not even receiving a glance from Nezumi before the man started walking, and Shion kept pace beside him, unsure if he should instigate conversation or wait.

            “I auditioned at your theater. Got the job. I’ll be working here again,” Nezumi said, suddenly, and Shion stared at his profile.

            He could detect nothing from Nezumi’s tone, and the silhouette of his expression against the morning sun was smooth, offered nothing of what the man could be thinking.

            “I’m glad, Nezumi. But is this something you wanted to do?”

            “I wouldn’t have done it if I hadn’t wanted to,” Nezumi replied flatly, and Shion bit the inside of his cheek, wished he knew what his soulmate was thinking.

            “Okay. It’s just – You seem upset.”

            “I’m not upset.”

            “Then tell me what you’re thinking, Nezumi,” Shion said, grabbing Nezumi’s arm to pull him to a stop at a corner, where he drew the man closer to a building so they wouldn’t be in the middle of a sidewalk.

            Nezumi glanced at Shion’s hand until he removed it from Nezumi’s arm.

            “You’re not yourself. You can tell me things, you know.”

            Nezumi clenched his jaw – Shion could see it in the tick of his jawline, the flinch of pale skin.        

            “I am myself. This is who I am, Shion.”

            Shion felt hot, confused. He didn’t know if Nezumi was mad at him. He didn’t know if Nezumi was unhappy with him. He didn’t know, he didn’t know.

            “Nezumi, please tell me what you’re thinking. I didn’t want to force you to come back to work at this theater, I only wanted – ”

            “I know what you wanted.”

            “Then tell me what you want!” Shion insisted, maybe a little too loudly, as Nezumi’s eyes widened slightly before relaxing, softening.

            He reached out, and Shion felt the warmth of Nezumi’s fingertips trace the scar on his cheek, his skin tingling almost unbearably.

            “I’m sorry if I worried you. I don’t mean to. It’s no longer a matter of what I want and don’t want. I know what I want now. It’s just…difficult,” Nezumi murmured, eyebrows creasing, looking doubtful.

            “What’s difficult?” Shion breathed, but he knew what was difficult, did not really have to ask.

            To speak was difficult, with Nezumi’s words so soft in his ears.

            To think was difficult, with Nezumi’s fingers still on his cheek.

            To breathe was difficult, with Nezumi’s eyes trained so deeply on his own.

            “To want something so badly,” Nezumi whispered, crease deepening between his eyebrows, inquiring as if Shion could help, had some advice, but Shion was the last person to know what to do with a longing so sharp it had long since hollowed him out and left room for nothing but this craving.

            But now, at Nezumi’s soft admission, he felt the hollow filling. Filling with something heavy, something warm, something he thought might be silver, if he could open himself up, look at his insides, see the way they’d changed just from one touch of this man, one look from this man.

            He wanted to fill Nezumi’s hollow and examined the silver trained on him, looked for a sign of how, the words to say to settle their quiet unease.

            Nezumi was his soulmate, after all. Shion was responsible for making him happy, and to have such a privilege was almost as wonderful as the feel of Nezumi’s fingers, still on his skin, warmer than the hottest sun.

*


	4. Chapter 4

It was Shion’s fault entirely that the kitchen was in the state it was, but Nezumi stayed to help clean anyway, not because he was partly to blame – because he wasn’t.

            “Yes, this _is_ your fault!” Shion retorted, leaning on the handle of the broom and pointing the dustpan at the man he accused.

            “Shion, just accept the blame. There are consequences to your actions, you know,” Nezumi replied, glancing up from where he was wiping down the faucet with a wet dishtowel.

            “I’m not the one who started it.”

            “You threw a bag of flour at me.”

            “Because you scared me! It was self-defense!” Shion shouted, and Nezumi shook his head, having heard this excuse too many times in the last hour for his preference.

            A bag of flour, it so happened, could explode rather dramatically, and they were only just cleaning off the last of the surfaces so that Karan didn’t have to wake up to find her kitchen caked in the blizzard of flour that had erupted upon Shion’s throw.

            “A bag of flour is how you’d defend yourself? There are knives right there,” Nezumi replied.

            “So you wanted me to throw a knife at you?”

            “With your aim, I would be safer if you were throwing it at me than if you weren’t,” Nezumi retorted, smirking slightly as he stepped back from the sink and examined the counter for any more specks of flour he might have missed.

            “Look, next time, just don’t sneak up on me,” Shion mumbled, disgruntled in a way Nezumi found undeniably cute.

            It creased Shion’s eyebrows, pouted his lips, narrowed his eyes, made a child out of the twenty-four-year-old man.

            “I didn’t sneak. I was walking. It’s not my fault you’re oblivious.”

            “You don’t walk like a normal person! You creep around all silent and graceful!”

            Nezumi washed the flour-coated dishtowel under the sink and wrung it out, shaking his head.

            He should have been used to such comments from Shion, but he wasn’t.

            “The counter’s done, and so is everything on that side of the kitchen. Just the floor – You almost done?”

            “Yeah, here, can you put this back in the closet?” Shion asked, standing up from his crouch where he’d been sweeping the last pile of flour into the dustpan and handing the broom to Nezumi, who took it.

            When Nezumi returned from the closet, Shion was washing his hands. Nezumi leaned on the counter, watched him dry his palms on his jeans before glancing at his watch.

            “Oh, it’s late.”

            Nezumi glanced out the kitchen doorway to look out the window on the front side of the bakery. Night had arrived while they’d cleaned, stark black and most likely freezing.

            “I could stay,” Nezumi said, glancing back at Shion, who stared at him.

            “Here?”

            “Preferably not in the kitchen,” Nezumi amended, feeling his lips turn up slightly.

            Shion blinked. “Do you want to?” he asked.

            “I wouldn’t have suggested it if I didn’t,” Nezumi replied, easily, hoping the kid wouldn’t make too big a deal.

            Nezumi was exhausted, not sure he could put up with the kid’s unwieldy excitement once he got started.

            “Okay. I’d like that.”

            Nezumi nodded. He knew Shion had wanted him to stay for a while now, but didn’t mind hearing Shion’s admission out loud even though it was not particularly a secret.

            “Do you want to shower?” Shion asked, and Nezumi glanced down at himself, realized his clothing was covered in flour – the one spot he’d missed.

            “Is it in my hair?” Nezumi groaned, lifting a hand to shake it out, but Shion stepped forward quickly, grabbed Nezumi’s wrist midair.

            “Don’t! It’ll go all over the kitchen, and we’ll have to clean again,” Shion said, and Nezumi let him pull his hand back down.

            “I guess I’ll shower then.”

            “Come on, I’ll get you a towel,” Shion said, and Nezumi followed the boy up the stairs – but he wasn’t really a boy anymore, didn’t seem like one anymore.

            A man now, older than when Nezumi had first met him, not by much, but the year or so it had been still showed.

            Nezumi waited outside the bathroom as Shion found him a towel and offered it to him along with folded clothes. The towel was blue, and Nezumi wondered if it was the same one he’d been offered what seemed like so long ago.

            “Thanks,” Nezumi said, turning into the bathroom.

            “Don’t use all the hot water,” Shion called softly, as Nezumi closed the door.

            In the bathroom mirror, Nezumi inspected the damage. He was thoroughly floured, and undressed slowly, deliberate movements so as not to get flour all over the bathroom. He left his clothing in a pile on the floor and turned on the shower faucet, stepping under after he felt that the water had warmed.

            He showered slowly, using Shion’s shampoo and conditioner, and it smelled like the man – of course it did – so he left it in his hair a little longer than he probably had to before washing it out, watching the suds slip down his legs, pool around his feet before whirling into the drain.

            Shion had said not to use all the hot water, but Nezumi felt as though he could stay under the warm spray for hours, feeling his muscles loosen, his shoulders relax.

            He shampooed and conditioned again, just because he could. Watched the suds retreat a second time, then turned off the shower spray and dried himself with the blue towel that he’d left folded on Shion’s bed the last time it had been offered to him.

            Now, he rubbed it over his still-warm skin, wrung his hair in it, pressed it against his face and breathed before hanging it on the hook at the back of the bathroom door and dressing in the folded clothes Shion had provided.

            A pair of boxers and a t-shirt. The shirt was smaller than Nezumi’s size, the hem grazing the waistband of the boxers, his skin not quite showing, but almost.

            He exited the bathroom and stepped in bare feet to Shion’s room, where the man sat in the middle of his floor, reading some book.

            He glanced up at Nezumi on his entrance.

            “I didn’t want to get flour on my stuff,” he said, an explanation for sitting in the middle of his floor, Nezumi assumed, so Nezumi just nodded.

            He peered at the title of the book Shion placed on his desk. Some scientific book about trees, utterly boring.

            “I’ll just take a quick shower, make yourself comfortable. We don’t have a guestroom, so you’ll have to sleep here. Do you mind?”

            Nezumi shrugged. “Your bed is big enough.”

            Shion gripped the doorframe. “I was – I could sleep on the floor, if that’s not – If you don’t want – I have extra blankets, it’s not a big deal – ”

            Nezumi grinned at Shion, pleased to have flustered him. “The bed is fine,” he said calmly, and Shion stared for a moment, then nodded once before stumbling away to the bathroom.

            In his absence, Nezumi had intended to explore, but ended up sitting on the edge of Shion’s bed that faced the window, glancing out at the dark night. He yawned and tilted his forehead against the glass, the cool of the window a relief on his warm skin.

            There were no stars, just large clouds, and Nezumi watched them float along lethargically, not noticing he was dozing off until he was jolted awake by the warm hand on his shoulder.

            “Oh! Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you,” Shion murmured, retracting his hand as Nezumi turned to stare at him.

            The man’s hair stuck out at odd angles, wet clumps hanging around his face.

            He needed a haircut, Nezumi thought.

            “I guess it’s payback for scaring me earlier though, so now we’re even. I didn’t think it was a good idea for you to sleep in such a position,” Shion said, voice soft, smile softer.

            His skin was flushed pink, probably from the heat of his shower. He smelled like the shampoo Nezumi had used twice. Soapy and fresh. Familiar.

            His lips were parted, and Nezumi listened, could hear the skate of his breaths across them. They jumbled with the soft tick of Shion’s watch that he’d taken off and left on his dresser.

            “Nezumi,” Shion whispered, and Nezumi watched his lips, how they stuck together for just a moment on the last syllable of his name before parting again.

            Nezumi glanced up to Shion’s eyes, the red not so vivid in Shion’s dark room, not so detectable, but if Nezumi looked closely, he could make out the hue of them, how strange it was, still new to him, still fascinating.

            “Is it okay if I kiss you?” Shion asked, and Nezumi had always thought this kid was too blunt, always speaking every thought he had, but now he was grateful.

            Grateful for this chance to think, to decide whether it was okay, if he was ready to give Shion this promise, this bit of permanence, this trust.

            He looked from Shion’s eyes back to his lips, leaned forward, then kissed the man, the warmth of his mouth startling, warmer even than the shower spray had been on his skin, but like the spray, Nezumi felt this kiss all over, drops of it over every inch of his body.

            The warmth was relief, he thought. In finding someone. Someone he wasn’t terrified of losing anymore. Someone he trusted to stay.

            Someone he promised to stay with too, with this kiss.

            When Shion pulled away, his eyes were wide.

            “Do you feel it?” he asked, and Nezumi licked his lips, wanted the man to come back.

            “Feel what?”

            “The thunder? I can feel it, shaking the entire house, and it feels like it’s shaking my bones inside my body.”

            Nezumi blinked, wondering if this was supposed to be some sort of metaphor, some strange attempt of Shion’s to advance his normally transparent speech, but then a flash of light crossed Shion’s face. Nezumi glanced behind him, out the window to see that it was indeed storming with thunder rumbling.

            “I hadn’t noticed,” Nezumi admitted.

            Shion leaned forward next to him, gazed out the window too. “Yeah,” he said softly, to the glass. “I thought it was just my heart at first.”

            Nezumi stared at him as another flash of lightning lit his profile.

            “The sky is silver when it storms,” Shion whispered, and Nezumi looked back out the window, tried to see what this man saw.

            Rain battered the glass like pebbles, or maybe a scattered heartbeat.

            “Do you think that’s why we’re soulmates?” Shion asked, still looking at the sky when Nezumi glanced at him.

            “What?”

            “Because we both share the sky?”

            It was a nonsensical statement. It shouldn’t have meant anything.

            But Nezumi still found himself agreeing.

            Yes. It made sense. It felt right. They were soulmates, and the sky was theirs, to remind them of how the other would always be present, could never be lost or too far away.

*

 _Are you ever going to move out from your mother’s place?_ Shion read, from the pad Nezumi was scribbling on against the handle of the grocery cart.

            He looked up at Nezumi, who stopped writing and was scouring the shelf in front of them.

            “It’s not just my mother’s place. It’s both mine and my mother’s,” Shion replied.

            Nezumi picked up a bag of strawberry flavored cough drops and scrutinized the package.

            “Get these, with the honey. That’ll sooth your throat,” Shion said, picking a different pack from the shelf and showing Nezumi, who hardly glanced at it.

            He threw his own pack into the cart and grabbed the notepad, writing more that Shion read aloud over Nezumi’s shoulder.

            “ ‘I like strawberry.’ Okay, well, even so, Nezumi, these aren’t candies, they’re medication, so we have to choose based off what will help you get your voice back, not what will taste the best,” Shion reminded gently, to which Nezumi simply stared at him before underlining his previous statement.

            Shion sighed. That someone could be so childish even without speaking was amazing to him.

            “How about we get the honey cough drops, and I’ll have my mom bake you some strawberry scones?”

            _How about I get the cough drops I want and scones,_ Nezumi wrote, lifting his eyebrows.

            “Stop being difficult!” Shion objected, to which Nezumi narrowed his eyes.

            _You stop being difficult,_ he wrote, and Shion grabbed the pad away from him.

            “You’ve lost your right to speak. We’re getting the honey ones, and that’s final. Don’t you want to get your voice back? Your manager is going to be upset if you have to miss another show,” Shion chastised, and Nezumi merely looked at him.

            Shion held back another sigh. He knew what Nezumi would say even if the man no longer had the pad to write on.

            Something along the lines of, _Do you think I care if my manager is upset?_

            “You should have more respect towards him. He gave you a job. Twice. Second chances aren’t always so easy to come by,” Shion said, extracting the strawberry cough drops from the cart and replacing them with the bag of honey flavored. “Is that all you needed? Why did you insist I get a cart?”

            Nezumi shrugged and began walking down the aisle, leaving Shion to wheel the nearly empty cart behind him.

            After paying, Nezumi opened the bag of cough drops on the walk back to the bakery and sucked on one while Shion handed him back his writing pad.

            “Here, you can have this back now,” he said, and Nezumi took it, flipping back a page and showing Shion his previously written question about his living arrangements again.

            “Like I said before, it’s not just my mother’s place, it’s mine too.”

            Nezumi exhaled roughly, turning to a clean page and writing while Shion watched and read aloud.

            “ ‘You don’t pay rent.’ Oh, you’re right. Do you think I should start?” he asked, glancing up at Nezumi, who stared back at him for a moment before rolling his eyes.

            He scribbled more on the pad.

            “ ‘No.’ No? That’s unexpected, coming from you,” Shion mused, as Nezumi shook his head, writing more.

            Shion grabbed his elbow and pulled him out of the way of two people walking by.

            “Aren’t you the one always going on about how financially irresponsible I am? And all because I buy tickets to see _your_ plays, by the way, anyone else would be flattered, but you just lecture me about – Oh, wait, I can’t read that first word,” Shion said, taking the pad Nezumi offered him and squinting at it.

            After he realized the first letter was an _M_ rather than an _N,_ Shion read, _Move out. I’m looking for a new place that’s closer. You’ll have to split rent – I’m not letting you freeload like your poor mother allows._

            Shion stopped walking completely, stood absolutely still until he felt a pressure on his arm, and then he was being jerked to the side, tripping over his feet and falling into Nezumi’s chest, who held him up easily.

            Shion glanced up, saw that Nezumi was not looking at him but off to the side, mouthing the word _Sorry._ Shion looked over, realized that he’d been in the way of a lady with a double stroller.

            “Oh, I’m so sorry, I wasn’t paying attention.”

            “It’s quite all right,” the woman said, waving, and Shion turned back to Nezumi, who still held onto his arms.

            He looked down at Shion and said nothing – but of course he couldn’t, without a voice, and Shion still held his pad, tight in his fist.

            “You want to move in together?” he asked, but Nezumi’s expression did not shift.

            The man simply looked at Shion, and Shion smiled widely up at him, watched the softening of the silver and the slight upturn of lips that Nezumi offered in return.

            Nezumi let go of Shion’s arms then, and Shion stepped back, handing back the notepad as they resumed walking.

            “We should look at houses now. Show me everything you’ve been considering. Do you think my mother will be upset? Probably not, we’re still right in the neighborhood, I’m sure she’ll be excited. It’s going to be amazing, I can’t wait, I’m so happy!” Shion gushed, glad that Nezumi couldn’t speak because he knew if the man could, he would probably interrupt, tell Shion to stop being so foolish with his words.

            Instead of a reprimand, Shion was presented with the pad of paper a moment later, had to read the words twice before he could believe them, was glad that they were written so he could read them a thousand times more.

            _I’m happy too, Shion._

 

THE END


End file.
